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+The Project Gutenberg eBook, The Public Life of Queen Victoria, by John
+McGilchrist
+
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+
+
+
+Title: The Public Life of Queen Victoria
+
+
+Author: John McGilchrist
+
+
+
+Release Date: May 3, 2012  [eBook #39603]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+
+***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE PUBLIC LIFE OF QUEEN
+VICTORIA***
+
+
+E-text prepared by Charlene Taylor and the Online Distributed Proofreading
+Team (http://www.pgdp.net) from page images generously made available by
+Internet Archive/American Libraries
+(http://www.archive.org/details/americana)
+
+
+
+Note: Images of the original pages are available through
+      Internet Archive/American Libraries. See
+      http://archive.org/details/publiclifeofquee00mcgi
+
+
+
+
+
+THE PUBLIC LIFE OF QUEEN VICTORIA.
+
+by
+
+JOHN MCGILCHRIST.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+Felt and Dillingham,
+455, Broome Street, New York.
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS.
+                                                                     PAGE
+
+  CHAPTER I.
+
+  ANCESTRY.
+
+    Frederick the Wise, Elector of Saxony, the Protector of
+    Luther--Staunch Protestantism of the Queen's Saxon
+    Forefathers--House of Saxe-Coburg--A Saxon Desperado of the
+    Middle Ages--A Fighting Hero of the Eighteenth Century--The
+    Queen's Grandmother a Woman of Extraordinary Excellence--
+    Great Alliances in the Marriages of her Uncles and Aunts             1
+
+
+  CHAPTER II.
+
+  THE GREATEST OF THE MODERN COBURGS.
+
+    Romantic Career of Prince Leopold of Saxe-Coburg, the Queen's
+    Uncle--His Continuous, Kind, and Fatherly Care of his
+    Orphaned Niece--The Duchy of Coburg held by Napoleon--
+    Sufferings of the Ducal Family--A Temptation resisted--The
+    Tide turned--Leopold's Popularity in England--Betrothal and
+    Marriage to the Princess Charlotte of Wales                          8
+
+
+  CHAPTER III.
+
+  PARENTAGE AND BIRTH OF QUEEN VICTORIA.
+
+    How the Princess Victoria came to be Heiress Presumptive to
+    the Throne--Death of the Princess Charlotte--Marriages of the
+    Royal Dukes--Of the Duke of Kent--Birth of the Princess
+    Alexandrina Victoria--Prediction of George IV.--Death of the
+    Duke of Kent--His Character--His Liberal Opinions--Public
+    Condolence with the Widow and Orphan--Early Life of the
+    Duchess of Kent                                                     14
+
+
+  CHAPTER IV.
+
+  FIRST YEARS OF CHILDHOOD.
+
+    Old Memories of Kensington Palace--Enlargements of the
+    Structure by William III., Anne, Queen Caroline, and the Duke
+    of Sussex--Maids of Honour--Rank and Beauty in the Gardens--
+    Wilberforce and the Infant Princess--Victoria at Ramsgate--A
+    Picture of Victoria when Five Years Old--Her Physical
+    Training--Popularity as a Child--Her Youthful Charities--A
+    Narrow Escape from Death--Early Development of Quick
+    Intelligence--Anecdotes--Love of Nature--Proneness to
+    Self-Will--But Counterbalanced by Candour--Waggishness--A
+    Portrait of the Child-Princess by Leigh Hunt                        23
+
+
+  CHAPTER V.
+
+  EDUCATION OF THE PRINCESS VICTORIA.
+
+    Additional Grant by Parliament for the Maintenance and
+    Education of the Princess--Wise Lessons learned at her
+    Mother's Knee--A Visit to George IV. at Windsor--Assiduous
+    Pursuit of Knowledge--Accession of William IV.--Victoria
+    becomes next in Succession to the Crown--Regency Bill--
+    Satisfaction of the Good Grandmother at Coburg--Her Death--
+    Joy of Victoria at the Elevation of her Uncle to the Belgian
+    Throne--Parliamentary Inquiry into the Progress of her
+    Education--Satisfactory Report in Response--Presented at
+    Court--Great Ball on her Twelfth Birthday at St. James's
+    Palace--Court Scandal and Baseless Rumours--The Duchess of
+    Northumberland appointed Governess--The Princess and the
+    Poet Southey                                                        37
+
+
+  CHAPTER VI.
+
+  THE PRINCESS IN HER TEENS.
+
+    Visits paid to many parts of England--Love of Cathedrals and
+    Church Music--Trip to North Wales and the Midland Counties--
+    Visit to a Cotton Mill--To Oxford--Gala Day at Southampton--
+    Interview with the Young Queen of Portugal--Confirmation of
+    the Princess--Tour to the North--York Musical Festival--At
+    Ramsgate with the King of the Belgians--A Noble Deed at
+    Tunbridge Wells                                                     47
+
+
+  CHAPTER VII.
+
+  EARLY DAYS OF PRINCE ALBERT.
+
+    Birth--Melancholy Story of his Mother--Brought up under the
+    Care of his Two Excellent Grandmothers--His Winning Ways as
+    a Child--His Tutor, Florschütz--The Brothers, Ernest and
+    Albert--Visit to Brussels, and its Beneficial Effects--Hard
+    Study--Tour through Germany, &c.--First Visit to England,
+    and Meeting with Victoria--Studies at Brussels--Enters the
+    University of Bonn--Tour to Switzerland and Italy--Public
+    Announcement of Betrothal--Leaves Coburg and Gotha for his
+    Marriage                                                            52
+
+
+  CHAPTER VIII.
+
+  THE PRINCESS VICTORIA BECOMES QUEEN REGNANT.
+
+    First Meeting of the Princess Victoria and Prince Albert--
+    Coming of Age--Festivities on the Occasion--Death of William
+    IV., and Accession of Victoria--The Queen holds her First
+    Privy Council--Her Address--Proclamation as Queen at St.
+    James's Palace--Beautiful Traits of Character displayed by
+    the Queen--Stirring and Gorgeous Scene--Delight of the
+    People at the Queen's Accession                                     61
+
+
+  CHAPTER IX.
+
+  THE MAIDEN QUEEN.
+
+    Removal to Buckingham Palace--First Levée--Dissolves
+    Parliament--Beauty of her Elocution--Splendid Reception by
+    the City of London--Settlement of the Queen's Income--Her
+    Daily Life--Her Admirable Knowledge of, and Devotion to, the
+    Business of the State--Reverence for the Lord's Day                 69
+
+
+  CHAPTER X.
+
+  THE QUEEN CROWNED.
+
+    Novel Features in the Coronation--Its Cost--Large Amount of
+    Money Circulated--Splendour of the Procession--Enormous
+    Crowds--The Scene within the Abbey--Arrival of the Queen--
+    The Regalia and Sacred Vessels--Costume of the Queen--
+    Astonishment of the Turkish Ambassador at the Scene--The
+    Coronation Ceremony--The Queen's Oath--The Anointing--The
+    Crown placed on her Head--The Homage--An Aged Peer--The
+    Queen's Crown--The Illuminations and General Festivities--
+    Fair in Hyde Park--The Duke of Wellington and Marshal Soult
+    at the Guildhall                                                    75
+
+
+  CHAPTER XI.
+
+  THE BEDCHAMBER PLOT.
+
+    Resignation of Lord Melbourne's Cabinet--Sir Robert Peel
+    sent for--Fails to form a Cabinet--His Explanation--The
+    Queen refuses to Dismiss her Ladies of the Bedchamber--
+    Supported by her late Ministers--Sir Robert Peel's
+    Objections--The Queen will not give way--The Whigs recalled
+    to Power--Public Opinion on the Dispute--The Whig Ministers
+    blamed, and the Queen exculpated                                    84
+
+
+  CHAPTER XII.
+
+  COURTSHIP AND BETROTHAL.
+
+    Desire of the Coburg Relatives for a Marriage between
+    Victoria and Albert--Favourable Impressions mutually made by
+    Victoria and Albert--Prince Albert's Letter on the Queen's
+    Accession--Opposition of King William IV. to the Marriage--
+    Correspondence between the Cousins--King Leopold Urges on
+    the Marriage--The Queen's Reluctance to become Betrothed--
+    Her subsequent Regret at this--The Prince craves a definite
+    Determination--His Second Visit to England--Betrothed at
+    Last--Returns to Germany to say Farewell                            91
+
+
+  CHAPTER XIII.
+
+  THE QUEEN WEDDED.
+
+    Announcement of the Intended Marriage to the Privy Council
+    and Parliament--Parliamentary Settlement of the Prince's
+    Rank, &c.--Annoying Circumstances--The Prince's
+    Protestantism--His Income--Arrival of the Bridegroom--
+    Receives a National Welcome--The Wedding--Honeymoon Spent at
+    Windsor                                                            100
+
+
+  CHAPTER XIV.
+
+  EARLY YEARS OF MARRIED LIFE.
+
+    Difficulties and Delicacy of Prince Albert's Position--Early
+    Married Life--Studies continued--Attempts on the Queen's
+    Life--Courage of the Queen--Birth of the Princess Royal--
+    Parting from the Whig Ladies of the Bedchamber--Dark Days
+    for England--Birth of the Prince of Wales--The Queen
+    Described by M. Guizot--A Dinner at Buckingham Palace--State
+    Dinner at Windsor                                                  110
+
+
+  CHAPTER XV.
+
+  THE QUEEN IN SCOTLAND.
+
+    Christening of the Prince of Wales--Manufacturing Distress--
+    The Queen's Efforts to alleviate it--Assesses Herself to the
+    Income Tax--Resolves to Visit Scotland--Embarks at Woolwich--
+    Beacon Fires in the Firth of Forth--Landing on Scottish
+    Soil--A Disappointment--Formal Entry into Edinburgh--Richness
+    of Historical and Ancestral Associations--The Queen on the
+    Castle Rock--A Highland Welcome--Departure from Scotland           126
+
+
+  CHAPTER XVI.
+
+  WHAT ENGLAND OWES TO PRINCE ALBERT.
+
+    The Prince's Study of our Laws and Constitution--Two
+    Misconceptions Outlived--His Versatility--His First Speech
+    an Anti-Slavery one--His Appreciation and Judicious Criticism
+    of Art--Scientific Side of his Mind--As an Agriculturist           141
+
+
+  CHAPTER XVII.
+
+  FOREIGN TRAVEL AND HOME VISITS.
+
+    Visit to King Louis Philippe at Eu--A Loyal Corporation--
+    Splendid Reception of the Queen in France--Anecdote of the
+    Queen's Regard for Prince Albert--Visit of the Czar
+    Nicholas--Home Life in Scotland--Visit to Germany--
+    Illuminations of the Rhine--A Rural Fête at Coburg                 149
+
+
+  CHAPTER XVIII.
+
+  THE QUEEN IN IRELAND.
+
+    First Visit to Ireland--Rapturous Reception at Cork--
+    Queenstown so denominated--Enthusiasm at Dublin--Its
+    Graceful Recognition by the Queen--Visit to the Dublin
+    Exhibition--Encouragement of Native Industry--Visit to the
+    Lakes of Killarney--The Whirligig of Time                          157
+
+
+  CHAPTER XIX.
+
+  THE WORLD'S CONGRESS OF INDUSTRY.
+
+    Prince Albert the Inaugurator of International Exhibitions--
+    Proposes, Unsuccessfully, his Scheme to the Government--To
+    the Society of Arts, Successfully--First Steps towards
+    Realisation--Objections to be Met--Perseverance of the
+    Prince--The Royal Commission--The Prince's Speech at York--
+    The Opening Ceremony--The Royal Procession                         164
+
+
+  CHAPTER XX.
+
+  THE WAR CLOUD.
+
+    Bright Hopes of Peace Dispelled--An Era of War all over the
+    World--The Russian War--The Queen's Visits to the Wounded
+    Soldiers--Presentation of the War Medals--Crimean Heroes--The
+    Volunteer Movement                                                 172
+
+
+  CHAPTER XXI.
+
+  THE QUEEN IN HER HIGHLAND HOME.
+
+    The Queen as an Author--"The Early Years of the Prince
+    Consort"--"Leaves from the Journal of Our Life in the
+    Highlands"--Love for Children of all Ranks--Mountain Ascents
+    on Pony-back--In Fingal's Cave--"The Queen's Luck"--
+    Salmon-spearing, and a Catastrophe attending it--Erection of
+    a Memorial Cairn--Freedom of Intercourse with Humble
+    Highlanders--Visits to Cottagers--"Mrs. Albert"--Travelling
+    Incognito--Highland Dinners--"A Wedding-Party frae
+    Aberdeen"--A Disguise Detected                                     186
+
+
+  CHAPTER XXII.
+
+  THE WIDOWED QUEEN.
+
+    Unbroken Happiness of the Queen's Life up to 1861--Death of
+    the Duchess of Kent--The Prince Consort slightly Ailing--
+    Catches Cold at Cambridge and Eton--The Malady becomes
+    Serious--Public Alarm--Rapid Sinking, and Death--Sorrow of
+    the People--The Queen's Fortitude--Avoidance of Court
+    Display--Good Deeds--Sympathy with all Benevolent Actions--
+    Letter of Condolence to the Widow of President Lincoln--The
+    "Albert Medal"--Conclusion                                         194
+
+
+
+
+LIFE OF QUEEN VICTORIA.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+ANCESTRY.
+
+    Frederick the Wise, Elector of Saxony, the Protector of
+    Luther--Staunch Protestantism of the Queen's Saxon Forefathers--House
+    of Saxe-Coburg--A Saxon Desperado of the Middle Ages--A Fighting Hero
+    of the Eighteenth Century--The Queen's Grandmother a Woman of
+    Extraordinary Excellence--Great Alliances in the Marriages of her
+    Uncles and Aunts.
+
+
+Queen Victoria is, through her mother, descended--and her children are
+descended by the double line of both their parents--from the great, good,
+and glorious Frederick the Wise, Elector of Saxony early in the sixteenth
+century, who was one of the first to embrace the principles of Luther's
+Reformation, and whose name still stands out so nobly and brightly as the
+staunch and courageous protector of the great Reformer. The Ernestine
+branch of this great Saxon house, from which the Queen and the Prince
+Consort both derived their descent, have ever, though at great cost and
+injury to themselves at many periods of their history, remained true to
+the principles thus early adopted by their common ancestor; and they have
+ever considered it as the brightest glory of their race, that they can
+proudly point to this unquestionable fact. When one of the most
+distinguished members--if, indeed, he was not the most illustrious
+scion--of this family, the Queen's maternal uncle, Leopold, King of the
+Belgians, made a journey into Scotland, to allay the pangs of the
+bereavement which he had suffered in the untimely death of his young wife,
+the Princess Charlotte, he paid a visit of a few days' duration to Sir
+Walter Scott at Abbotsford. While there, an aged and reverend Scottish
+divine was presented to the Prince. The clergyman, in the course of the
+interview, made complimentary reference to this fact in the descent of the
+Prince. Prince Leopold, in reply, stated that this was the first notice
+which had been taken of the circumstance in his presence since the day of
+his first arrival in England, and that he felt more honoured by it than by
+any other tribute which had been paid to him and his family.
+
+[Sidenote: "A GLIMPSE OF SAXON HISTORY."]
+
+The curious in such matters, those for whom the minute particularity of
+authenticated genealogical detail possesses a charm, with which the
+compiler of these pages acknowledges that he is himself affected, but
+which it would be unfair to such of his readers as do not share this taste
+to minister to at excessive length--such we refer to the Reverend Edward
+Tauerschmidt's "Brief Historical Account of the Dukedom and Ducal House of
+Saxe-Coburg and Gotha." There they will find the full pedigree, with no
+link wanting, which connects Her Majesty, and equally her first cousin and
+spouse, by the links of twenty-five generations, with the Saxon Earl
+Theodoric, or Dideric, of the House of Bucizi, who is recorded to have
+died in the year of our Lord 982. We content ourselves with proceeding at
+a leap to the reign of Frederick the Benignant, Elector of Saxony, who
+was thirteenth in descent from Earl Theodoric, and died in 1464. In a most
+fascinating article which was contributed by Mr. Carlyle to the January
+number of the _Westminster Review_ for the year 1855, entitled, "A Glimpse
+of Saxon History," a most romantic incident of this Elector's reign is
+narrated with the writer's customary graphic power. This potentate had a
+"fighting captain" in his employ, by name Kunz von Kaufungen. Fighting for
+his master, he was captured, and being a warrior of importance, was
+amerced in the heavy ransom of a sum equal to 2,000 English pounds. This
+he paid, but expected to be indemnified by Frederick. This expectation,
+for some reason, was not fulfilled. Kunz, exasperated, swore to be
+avenged. On the 7th of July, 1455, Kunz entered the town of Altenburg, at
+the head of a party of thirty men. Having bribed one of the servants to
+treachery, they obtained admission into the Electoral castle, from which
+they carried off Frederick's two sons, the Princes Ernest and Albert. The
+Electress soon discovered her loss, and the desperadoes had not proceeded
+far on their several ways (they had divided into two bands, each having
+one of the children), ere they were hotly pursued. Kunz himself headed
+that moiety of his force who bore with them Ernest, the elder boy and the
+more valuable hostage. The pursuers caused alarms to be rung from the
+village spires, and amongst others of the peasantry who were aroused, was
+a rough charcoal-burner, who, encountering the party of Kunz, "belaboured
+him with the poking-pole" which he used in his vocation, and to such
+effect that he vanquished the abductor, rescued the boy, and had the
+happiness of restoring him to the arms of his agonised mother. When
+asked, wonderingly and admiringly, how he dared to attack so formidable a
+foe, he replied to his fair and grateful querist, "Madam, I _drilled_ him
+soundly with my poking-pole." From that day he was known by no other name
+than the Driller--_der Triller_. Kunz was consigned to the block, while
+the Driller, and deliverer, was offered any reward he chose to name. This
+true man--a mediæval "Miller of the Dee"--asked no other recompense than
+"only liberty to cut, of scrags and waste wood, what will suffice for my
+charring purposes." This was at once granted, along with the freehold of a
+snug farm, and an annual and ample allowance of corn from the barns of the
+Electors. All was secured to him and his posterity by formal deed, and his
+descendants to this day enjoy the privileges so valiantly earned by their
+ancestor four centuries ago. From the two princes so rescued, descended
+respectively the Ernestine and the Albertine branches of the Saxon house.
+The Queen is--as her husband was--twelfth in descent from the little
+Prince Ernest, who became the progenitor of the former line.
+
+[Sidenote: THE QUEEN'S SAXON ANCESTORS.]
+
+The parent stock had boasted among other meritorious or distinguished
+representatives the names of Conrad the Great, Otho the Rich, Henry the
+Illustrious, three Fredericks, dubbed respectively the Serious, the
+Warlike, and the Benignant; whilst, as disparaging sets-off, either
+demerit or misfortune was indicated, in the instance of other Electors, by
+these sobriquets--the Oppressed, the Degenerate, the Severe, and,
+strangest of all, Frederick-with-the-Wounded-Cheek. This habit of
+designating the successive Electors by their moral or other
+peculiarities, or by the incidents or accidents of their careers, was
+continued but for a few generations of the Ernestine branch of the
+bifurcated line. It contained a Magnanimous Frederick, and a Fiery Ernest,
+after whose death, in 1675, this pleasing plan of picturesque designation
+no longer meets the eye of the student.
+
+The chivalrous protection which Frederick the Magnanimous--or the Wise, as
+he is sometimes also denominated--spread as a buckler over Luther and the
+Lutherans cost him his birthright. The bigoted Charles V. diverted, in
+1547, the Electoral dignity from the Ernestine to the Albertine branch,
+and the fortunes of the house cannot be said to have been fully restored
+until the Treaty of Tilsit, in 1807, ratified as its main provisions were
+by that of Vienna, seven years later.
+
+Coming down to more recent times, and to the Queen's more immediate
+ancestry, we find the old spirit which these brave Saxon princes
+represented in the stirring mediæval and Reforming days, abundantly
+maintained in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, and notably so on
+the field of battle, in the great wars with which the names of Frederick
+the Great, Maria Theresa, Suwarow, and Napoleon are associated.
+Francis Josias was twenty-second of the line, and the Queen's
+great-great-grandfather. His great-grandson, the late King Leopold, says
+of him, that he was "much looked up to." He was a tall and powerful man,
+but disfigured by having lost an eye at tennis, a game then very popular
+on the Continent. One of his grandsons, a Prince Frederick Josias, served
+with distinction in the Seven Years' War, in one of the battles of which
+he was shot through the hand. He was subsequently employed in high
+positions by the Empress Maria Theresa, and made a great name for himself
+against the Turks. Suwarow and he extricated the Emperor Joseph, the son
+of the Empress, from utter failure, and conquered the Principalities. He
+afterwards fought against Dumouriez in the Netherlands, and gained the
+battle of Neerwinden, in 1793, near Tirlemont; "one of the greatest
+battles of modern history," says his nephew, King Leopold, a most
+competent authority on the subject. He says that, but for the inaction of
+the Dutch contingent, and the insane attempt of the Duke of York to
+conquer Dunkirk, the allies, after this victory, which cleared the
+Netherlands of the French, might as easily have marched upon Paris as the
+forces of Wellington and Blucher did after Waterloo.
+
+The Queen's grandfather, suffering early in life from exceedingly bad
+health, was cast in a much less energetic mould, but his character was
+eminently benevolent and loveable, and he had a knowledge and love of the
+fine arts, which Prince Albert, in the highest degree of all his
+descendants, inherited. The Queen's grandmother, who was of the
+Reuss-Ebersdorff family, was equally warm-hearted, possessed a powerful
+mind, and "loved her grandchildren most tenderly." We shall have much to
+say of her in subsequent pages.
+
+[Sidenote: THE HOUSE OF SAXE-COBURG.]
+
+Of the Queen's aunts, one, after declining many eligible offers in her own
+princely rank, married Count Mensdorff-Pouilly, a French emigrant of the
+Revolution, who entered the Austrian service, and became the father of the
+well-known Austrian statesman, Count Arthur Mensdorff, who was the bosom
+friend of Prince Albert from his earliest infancy until his untimely
+death. A second married the reigning Duke of Wurtemburg, and occupied for
+many years a very influential position in Russia, her husband being
+brother of the Empress Catherine (the second of that name), and maternal
+uncle of the Emperors Alexander and Nicholas. The third daughter of the
+house herself became a Russian Grand Duchess; she was wedded at the age of
+fifteen to the Grand Duke Constantine. The marriage was an inharmonious
+one, and in 1802 the young pair agreed to separate. Both husband and wife
+were acquitted of all blame; Leopold, the brother of the latter,
+attributes the sad event to "the shocking hypocrisy of the
+Empress-mother," in the absence of which "things might have gone on." The
+Queen's mother, who was christened Victoire (or Victoria) Marie Louise,
+was the youngest of the four sisters. Besides Duke Ernest, the father of
+Prince Albert, the Queen had two other maternal uncles. One was Frederick
+George, who married a great heiress, the Hungarian Princess of Kohary. His
+son became the consort of Donna Maria II. of Portugal; his grandson, the
+present King of Portugal, is the Queen's first cousin once removed, and
+the second cousin of her children. Her other uncle was the late King of
+the Belgians, whose career is a portion of the history of our
+grandfathers', our fathers', and our own times, and is so intimately
+associated with the life and fortunes of Her Majesty as to merit separate
+treatment in a succeeding chapter, and elsewhere incidentally in the
+course of our narrative.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+THE GREATEST OF THE MODERN COBURGS.
+
+    Romantic Career of Prince Leopold of Saxe-Coburg, the Queen's
+    Uncle--his Continuous, Kind, and Fatherly Care of his Orphaned
+    Niece--The Duchy of Coburg held by Napoleon--Sufferings of the Ducal
+    Family--A Temptation resisted--The Tide turned--Leopold's Popularity
+    in England--Betrothal and Marriage to the Princess Charlotte of Wales.
+
+
+[Sidenote: PRINCE LEOPOLD OF SAXE-COBURG.]
+
+Born in the year 1790, Prince Leopold was a soldier and in the saddle when
+he was fifteen years of age. In 1805, that war broke out between Napoleon
+and Austria, in which the power of the Kaiser was so near being destroyed.
+The health of the Duke Francis, Leopold's father, was fast failing him,
+and the tremendous sorrows and sufferings inflicted by the victorious
+French upon Germany, hastened the rapidity of his descent to the grave.
+Ernest, the eldest son, and Leopold hurriedly left Coburg to join the
+Russian army in Moravia. Their only other brother was already in an
+Austrian regiment of Hussars. Ere Leopold could flesh his sword,
+Austerlitz had been fought and lost, and Austria was thoroughly crippled.
+He returned to Coburg to witness his father's death. The French were in
+possession of the town and Duchy, and when they learned that the new Duke
+was with their Prussian foe, they appointed a military intendant, a M.
+Vilain--in nature as well as in name, so Leopold afterwards recorded. The
+Ducal family were reduced to such straits, that they depended for their
+very sustenance upon the clandestine benefactions of the Governmental
+subordinates, surlily winked at by their French masters. The Duchess set
+off on a journey to Warsaw to endeavour to propitiate Napoleon; but she
+was permitted to proceed no farther than Berlin, as Napoleon hated such
+visits. She returned baffled to Coburg, which remained "une possession
+Française." The Peace of Tilsit, among its other provisions,
+"reintegrated" Coburg; but, through the greed and treachery of Prussia,
+the stipulated arrangements were never fulfilled. On the ratification of
+the Peace, Duke Ernest came to Coburg for the first time to assume his
+Ducal power and dignity.
+
+As a matter of policy, Leopold, with other German Princes, now visited
+Napoleon at Paris, where he was courteously received. On his return from
+Paris, early in 1808, he nearly died of scarlet fever. After a very tardy
+and painful recovery, he went, at the end of the year, to the Congress of
+Erfurth, to which he had been summoned by the Czar Alexander. He tried
+there to secure to his brother his undiminished territorial possessions,
+and succeeded in making such a favourable impression upon Napoleon that he
+would have done so, but for the impolitic excessiveness of his brother's
+claims, and the apathetic manner in which the Czar supported them. The war
+with Russia came on, in which he eagerly desired to serve against the
+French; but Napoleon caused it to be known that if he did so his brother
+would be held responsible; so he had to abide in inglorious and detested
+ease. Napoleon made him tempting offers to enter his service, and would
+have been more incensed at his persistent refusal than he was, but for
+the friendly intercession of Josephine and Queen Hortense, her daughter,
+who were both very friendly to the young Prince.
+
+Meanwhile he turned his eminent talents for diplomacy to good account. He
+persuaded Bavaria to return to his brother portions of Coburg territory
+which that state unjustly held, and removed the galling pain of the
+Bavarian flag floating over villages within four English miles of the town
+of Coburg itself.
+
+[Sidenote: THE PRINCESS CHARLOTTE.]
+
+In 1812 Napoleon's frightful war with Russia broke out. Napoleon summoned
+the subject and enfeebled German Princes to Dresden. Duke Ernest was
+compelled to go, and Leopold also was cited to the gathering, but he went
+to Vienna, and then to Italy, to keep out of the way. It would have been
+now most dangerous to decline the French service, and he was determined at
+all costs not to enter it. "Germany," said he, "was, at the beginning of
+1812, in the lowest and most humiliating position; Austria and Prussia
+sunk to be auxiliaries; everybody frightened and submissive, except Spain,
+supported by England." But Napoleon's reverses in Russia soon followed,
+and they electrified all Germany into new courage. The Duke of Coburg
+posted off to Berlin to endeavour to stimulate the perplexed, vacillating,
+and timorous Prussian King into manly and decided action. The other
+brother, Ferdinand, went to Vienna on a similar errand. Leopold hied him
+to Munich to stir up the Crown Prince of Bavaria, afterwards King Louis.
+They were all moderately successful, and Leopold hastened to Kalisch, in
+Poland, being the first German Prince to join the Army of Liberation. He
+was equally honoured and gratified by being appointed a Major-General by
+the Czar. He was present at the hard-fought but indecisive battles of
+Lutzen and Bautzen. There followed an armistice, and a conference at
+Prague, with a view to a definite settlement. This the Prince attended. He
+was the only person admitted to the presence of the Emperor of Austria,
+and spent much of his time with the plenipotentiaries Metternich,
+Humboldt, Ansted, Gentz, and others. The negotiations broke off, and
+hostilities were resumed. At the decided defeat which the French general
+Vandamme sustained, shortly before the crowning victory of Leipsic,
+Leopold commanded all the allied cavalry, and distinguished himself the
+more that he was the only general in the field who knew the country. He
+was present, and in high command, at Leipsic, where Germany was finally
+freed. After the fight, the Grand Duke Constantine accompanied him to
+Coburg, visiting the relatives of the wife from whom he was now separated,
+and who lived and died in retirement in Switzerland. Amongst others they
+visited the future Duchess of Kent, then Princess of Leiningen, her first
+husband being still alive. Shortly afterwards Constantine and Leopold
+rejoined the army in Switzerland, where Leopold tried hard, but
+ineffectually, to effect a reconciliation between his sister and her
+husband. Leopold subsequently entered Paris at the head of the cavalry;
+his eldest brother procured the evacuation of Mayence by its French
+garrison. The three brothers all met in Paris, from which Leopold
+proceeded, in the suite of the Czar, to the great triumphant gathering of
+the Allied Sovereigns in London. Now for the first time he met his future
+bride, the Princess Charlotte, only child of the Prince Regent, and heir
+to the throne. His splendid continental career already propitiated her,
+as it did all the British people, in his favour. The project of a
+matrimonial union between the gallant young general and the still more
+youthful princess was warmly taken up by the leading men in power,
+including Wellington, his brothers, and Castlereagh. The Prince Regent
+alone was opposed to the project. He was irritated by his daughter's
+repugnance to the Prince of Orange, who was destined by him to be his
+son-in-law, and by her recent flight from Carlton House to the residence
+of her mother. Leopold, however, decidedly succeeded in winning the
+affections of the lady herself, and the nation was delighted at the
+project. The Dukes of York and Kent, too, warmly encouraged his suit. On
+his return home he found that his youngest sister had been unexpectedly
+left a widow, and he arranged the guardianship and pecuniary affairs of
+the future mother of England's Queen. At the Congress of Vienna, whither
+he went to plead the cause of his brother, his amazing sagacity and tact
+induced the negotiators to make a very satisfactory arrangement of
+frontier. This he settled, to the great chagrin of Humboldt, the Prussian
+envoy, who, with the Prussian Court and people generally, seems to have
+been extremely spiteful towards the little principality, their near
+neighbour.
+
+[Sidenote: A ROYAL MARRIAGE.]
+
+Leopold was not at Waterloo--fought so near the capital of his future
+kingdom. He was posted in Alsace in command of an army of observation,
+which, of course, was never needed for action. Leopold went alone to
+Paris, with the leave of the Czar, still animated by the purpose of
+advancing his brother's pretensions; Prussia having failed to carry out
+the rectifications of frontier enacted at Vienna the year before. He
+succeeded in this object, and hopes of the highest nature were engendered
+about an affair still nearer to his heart. Wellington and Castlereagh
+treated him with marked and significant deference. And through the kind
+intervention of the good-hearted and simple-minded Duke of Kent, he
+received from his ladye-love some pleasant tokens of continued affection
+and renewed pledges of staunch fidelity. He was strongly recommended to
+repair to England and renew and prosecute his wooing in person; but he
+very astutely declined, thinking it unwise to "brave" the Prince Regent.
+He went, instead, to Vienna, to act as groomsman at the wedding of his
+brother Ferdinand with the great Hungarian heiress whose love he had won;
+and from thence to Berlin, persistently to enforce his brother's twice
+recognised and sanctioned rights. At Berlin he received a welcome
+invitation to England from the Regent, and a most satisfactory letter of
+"explanation" from Lord Castlereagh. He arrived in London in February,
+1816. Castlereagh at once took him to Brighton, where the Regent was. He
+received his daughter's wooer most graciously. The old queen and her three
+daughters posted after Leopold from London, and in a family council the
+marriage was definitely agreed on. The young couple were married in May,
+amid the joyful acclamations of the whole nation.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+PARENTAGE AND BIRTH OF QUEEN VICTORIA.
+
+    How the Princess Victoria came to be Heiress Presumptive to the
+    Throne--Death of the Princess Charlotte--Marriages of the Royal
+    Dukes--Of the Duke of Kent--Birth of the Princess Alexandrina
+    Victoria--Prediction of George IV.--Death of the Duke of Kent--His
+    Character--His Liberal Opinions--Public Condolence with the Widow and
+    Orphan--Early Life of the Duchess of Kent.
+
+
+[Sidenote: MARRIAGE OF THE DUKE OF KENT.]
+
+On the 6th of November, 1817, the hopes of the nation, which had so fondly
+rested upon the happy union between the Princess Charlotte and Prince
+Leopold, were fatally blasted by Her Royal Highness's death, shortly after
+her delivery of a still-born child. Never in our history was a blow felt
+more deeply and personally by all the nation, than this bereavement. The
+death of the Princess Charlotte severely and most painfully disappointed
+the nation in its general expectation with regard to the much desired
+succession to the throne in the person of herself and her heirs. The Duke
+of Cumberland, who was hated by all, was the only married younger son of
+the king, and there was a general desire that the other royal princes,
+especially the popular and estimable Dukes of Kent and Sussex, should seek
+out suitable partners. The Duke of Kent rightly felt that the House of
+Brunswick was dear to the English people, that the nation had a very
+strong desire that the question of succession should be placed beyond
+doubt, and that, considering the uncertainty of the chances of life, and
+of leaving offspring, it was clearly his duty to marry. Indeed, he had
+already, ere the untimely death of his niece, offered his hand and heart
+to the widowed Princess of Leiningen. The Princess Charlotte tenderly
+loved her uncle Kent, who had done so much to promote the attainment of
+the wishes of her own heart, and she did all she could to promote the
+marriage of her uncle with the sister of her husband. But the position of
+the Princess of Leiningen as guardian of her two children occasioned
+delays; and no unimportant matter was the fact that if she re-married, she
+would sacrifice a jointure of nearly £5,000 a year, while the Duke of Kent
+was punished by the Court for his free and outspoken Liberal opinions by
+being restricted to a very meagre pecuniary allowance from the Tory
+Parliament. At last, however, all minor difficulties were smoothed over.
+On the 13th of May, a message was brought down to Parliament, announcing
+that "the Prince Regent had given his consent to a marriage between the
+Duke of Kent and Her Serene Highness Mary Louisa Victoria, daughter of the
+Duke of Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld, widow of Enrich Charles, Prince of
+Leiningen, and sister of Prince Leopold." Of all the royal marriages, this
+was the one which the heart of the country went most thoroughly along
+with. The Duke of Kent never disguised--indeed, he openly proclaimed--his
+attachment to the principles of the popular party; and the fact of the
+close relationship of his intended wife to Prince Leopold was another
+strong recommendation. The marriage was celebrated, first according to the
+Lutheran rites in Germany, on the 29th May, 1818, and, on the 13th of
+July following, by the Archbishop of Canterbury; the Prince Regent, on the
+latter occasion, giving away the bride. In the same summer, the Dukes of
+Clarence and Cambridge had married. The Duke of Sussex, whose affections
+and sympathies were otherwise engaged, declined to contract a foreign
+alliance; but he took the liveliest interest in the marriage of his
+favourite brother Kent, as he also did in the future welfare and
+prosperity of his niece.
+
+[Sidenote: CHRISTENING OF THE PRINCESS VICTORIA.]
+
+After the English marriage, the young couple sojourned for a brief period
+at Claremont, the residence which had been selected by the Princess
+Charlotte, and which Prince Leopold continued to occupy. They then, guided
+chiefly by motives of economy, for their means were very small, travelled
+on the Continent, from which they returned for the accouchement of the
+Duchess. Both prospective parents were desirous that their child should be
+"born a Briton." They arrived at Dover on the 23rd of April, 1819, and on
+the 24th of May the Princess Alexandrina Victoria was born at Kensington
+Palace. She was born in the presence of the Dukes of Sussex and
+Wellington, the Archbishop of Canterbury, the Marquis of Lansdowne, Earl
+Bathurst, Mr. Canning, Mr. Vansittart, and the Bishop of London. The Duke
+of Kent wept for joy, and the fact that his infant was a daughter did not
+in the least degree diminish his delight. The Duchess rapidly recovered,
+and the beauty and symmetry of the infant Princess were spoken of with
+admiration by all who had an opportunity of observing her. Shortly after
+this happy event, the Duke of Kent attended a drawing-room, from which,
+and similar Court ceremonies, the estrangement between himself and the
+Regent had for some time kept him away. His brother was most affable, and
+invited him to dine the next day, when he predicted that his little niece
+would be Queen some time. This certainly seemed improbable shortly
+afterwards, for Clarence, who was nearer in succession than Kent, became
+the father of two daughters by his wife, Adelaide. But they both died
+young, thereby opening the succession to the child of the Duke of Kent,
+and verifying the Regent's prophecy. The child was christened with great
+privacy, on the 24th of June, in the Palace of Kensington. The royal gold
+font was fetched from the Tower, and fitted up in the grand saloon of the
+palace. Under the direction of the Lord Chamberlain, the draperies were
+removed from the Chapel Royal, St. James's. The Archbishop of Canterbury,
+assisted by the Bishop of London, administered the holy office; the Prince
+Regent, the members of the Royal Family, and other illustrious visitors
+were present. The sponsors were the Prince Regent, the Czar Alexander
+(represented by the Duke of York as proxy), the Queen Dowager of
+Wurtemberg (represented by the Princess Augusta), and the Duchess Dowager
+of Coburg (represented by the Duchess of Gloucester). A brilliant evening
+party filled the saloons of the happy parents.
+
+The Duke and Duchess still made Claremont their chief home. But the winter
+of 1819-20 set in with unusual severity, and they went to Sidmouth, in the
+hope of escaping its trying severity. From Sidmouth the Duke made an
+excursion to visit Salisbury Cathedral, where he caught a slight cold. On
+his return to Sidmouth it became alarming, and the Duchess sent off in
+haste to her brother, who was visiting at Lord Craven's. Soon after his
+arrival, the Duke breathed his last. While his cold still slightly
+affected him, he had gone for a long walk, on the 13th of January, with
+Captain Conroy, and had his boots soaked through with wet. He neglected to
+change his boots and stockings until he dressed for dinner, being
+attracted by the smiles of his infant princess, with whom he sat for some
+time playing. Before night he had a sensation of cold and hoarseness, but
+the doctors were not alarmed, and merely prescribed mild medicaments and a
+good night's rest. But the symptoms of fever rapidly increased, and, in
+spite of much blood-letting, he died ten days from the date of the
+recurrence of his cold. He met his death with pious resignation. The
+Duchess was most indefatigable in her attentions, and personally performed
+all the offices of the sick-bed. For five successive nights she never took
+off her clothes, and she struggled to prevent his seeing the agony of her
+apprehensions, never leaving the bed-side but to give vent to her bursting
+sorrow. The presence of her brother was a great comfort to her, both
+before and after the moment of death. It was fortunate, indeed, that
+Leopold was in this country, "as the poor Duke had left his family
+deprived of all means of existence." So did Leopold himself testify many
+years afterwards.
+
+[Sidenote: THE DUKE OF KENT.]
+
+The Duke of Kent, although unpopular in his youth on account of his
+strictness as a military disciplinarian, became in later days much
+beloved. His stature was tall, and his appearance noble and manly. His
+manner was engaging, and his conversation animated. He possessed an exact
+memory, varied information, a quick and masculine intellect. In many of
+his tastes and habits he closely resembled his father. He was an early
+riser, and a close economist of time; temperate in eating; though fond of
+society, indifferent to wine; a kind master, punctual correspondent, and
+exact man of business; a steady friend, and an affectionate brother. He
+was peculiarly exempt in his youth from those extravagances and vices with
+which the names of some of his brothers were so painfully associated. He
+was in his early life, which he spent in active and laborious military
+service, a pattern of prudence, economy, and industrious habits. He
+incurred no unnecessary expenses, and made few debts, although his annual
+allowance was only £1,000 for some years after he had attained his
+majority. He delighted in books, education, charity, and the promotion of
+all useful arts, and was a model son, husband, and father. He was a
+staunch and uncompromising advocate of those liberal opinions which it is
+so well known that his daughter inherits, which she displayed so
+unreservedly early in her reign, but the prominent expression of which
+prudence and constitutional restraints convinced her that it was advisable
+to keep in the background, as her mind grew and ripened. The Duke of
+Kent's political views will be gathered from the following extract from a
+speech at a banquet, in which he replied to the toast of the junior
+members of the Royal Family:--"I am a friend of civil and religious
+liberty, all the world over. I am an enemy to all religious tests. I am a
+supporter of a general system of education. All men are my brethren; and I
+hold that power is only delegated for the benefit of the people. These are
+the principles of myself and of my beloved brother, the Duke of Sussex.
+They are not popular principles just now; that is, they do not conduct to
+place or office. _All_ the members of the Royal Family do not hold the
+same principles. For this I do not blame them; but we claim for ourselves
+the right of thinking and acting as we think best, and we proclaim
+ourselves, with our friend Mr. Tierney, 'members of His Majesty's loyal
+Opposition.'" These words give a precise and definite idea of the
+character of this clear-headed, good-hearted, shrewd, practical, and
+unpretending man.
+
+Prince Leopold accompanied his widowed sister and the little orphan from
+Sidmouth to Kensington Palace. The weather was most severe, and the
+journey a trying one. The Houses of Parliament remembered, with respectful
+solicitude, the widowed and isolated state of the Duchess. Both Houses
+voted addresses of condolence. That from the Commons was presented by
+Lords Morpeth and Clive. She appeared in person, though unable to suppress
+her grief, with the infant Victoria in her arms, to receive the
+deputation. She presented the babe to the deputed Members, and pointed to
+her as the treasure to whose preservation and improvement she was resolved
+to dedicate her best energies and fondest love. The interview was
+exceedingly touching. A true woman, the Duchess could not conceal the
+intensity of her widowed grief; but that did not overshadow her maternal
+affection, and she recognised and spoke courageously of her duties, her
+responsibilities, and her high resolves. Public feeling and national
+anxiety accompanied her into her domestic privacy, and all classes of
+society took the deepest interest in all her movements.
+
+[Sidenote: THE DUCHESS OF KENT.]
+
+The Queen, indeed, owes much to her mother, who lived long enough to see
+her daughter's grandchildren. The Duchess of Kent had been brought up
+under the immediate care and superintendence of her illustrious mother,
+whose character we have already described. She had shared the youthful
+lessons of her brother Leopold--a source, doubtless of great intellectual
+profit. In 1802, when she was but sixteen, much against her own wish, and
+only in compliance with the entreaties of her beloved father--who wished
+to see his only surviving daughter married, in such troublesome times, ere
+the end of his precarious and sickly life came--she became the wife of the
+Prince of Leiningen, a man eight-and-twenty years her senior. The union
+was most inappropriate and unwise. Her husband was repugnant in person and
+manners. He failed either to secure her confidence or contribute to her
+happiness. Yet she fulfilled her duties as a wife and mother in so
+exemplary a manner, from her marriage to her husband's death, in 1814,
+that the breath of slander never sullied her fair fame. Indeed, by the
+purity of her life, the manner in which she discharged her maternal
+duties, and the graceful suavity of her manners, she did much to ennoble
+the character of the House of Leiningen, which her husband had done much
+to lower. Her marriage with the Duke of Kent was one of unmistakable
+affection, and was a very happy one. Their tastes were similar; but her
+meekness and tact had a beneficial influence in mitigating a certain stern
+and abrupt brusqueness which he partly inherited from his father, and
+partly derived from the camps and garrison towns in which his youth was
+spent. The simplicity and tender unaffectedness of her manners--a
+peculiarity distinctive of the highest class of well-bred German
+women--and her fascinating combination of gentleness with gaiety, not
+only won and bound, by daily increasing ties, the affections of her
+husband, but of all those who had the good fortune to become personally
+acquainted with her admirable life and disposition.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+
+FIRST YEARS OF CHILDHOOD.
+
+    Old Memories of Kensington Palace--Enlargements of the Structure by
+    William III., Anne, Queen Caroline, and the Duke of Sussex--Maids of
+    Honour--Rank and Beauty in the Gardens--Wilberforce and the Infant
+    Princess--Victoria at Ramsgate--A Picture of Victoria when Five Years
+    old--Her Physical Training--Popularity as a Child--Her Youthful
+    Charities--A Narrow Escape from Death--Early Development of Quick
+    Intelligence--Anecdotes--Love of Nature--Proneness to Self-will--But
+    Counterbalanced by Candour--Waggishness--A Portrait of the
+    Child-Princess by Leigh Hunt.
+
+
+The infancy, girlhood, and budding womanhood of the Princess Victoria were
+chiefly spent at the Royal Palace of Kensington. It was her mother's fixed
+residence, but the family were much at Claremont, where the Queen
+testifies that she spent the happiest days of her childhood. There were
+frequent trips made, too, to various watering-places; and, as the Princess
+grew in years, visits were paid at the country houses of some of the
+nobility. Leigh Hunt, in his exquisite book of gossip entitled "The Old
+Court Suburb," thus happily describes the more salient and prominent
+features of the somewhat sombre region of the Queen's up-bringing:--
+
+    In vain we are told that Wren is supposed to have built the south
+    front, and Kent (a man famous in his time) the east front. We can no
+    more get up any enthusiasm about it as a building, than if it were a
+    box or a piece of cheese. But it possesses a Dutch solidity; it can
+    be imagined full of English comfort; it is quiet; in a good air; and,
+    though it is a palace, no tragical history is connected with it: all
+    which considerations give it a sort of homely, fireside character,
+    which seems to represent the domestic side of royalty itself, and thus
+    renders an interesting service to what is not always so well
+    recommended by cost and splendour. Windsor Castle is a place to
+    receive monarchs in; Buckingham Palace to see fashion in; Kensington
+    Palace seems a place to drink tea in: and this is by no means a state
+    of things in which the idea of royalty comes least home to the good
+    wishes of its subjects. The reigns that flourished here, appositely
+    enough to this notion of the building, were all tea-drinking
+    reigns--at least on the part of the ladies; and if the present Queen
+    does not reign there, she was born and bred there, growing up quietly
+    under the care of a domestic mother; during which time, the
+    pedestrian, as he now goes quietly along the gardens, fancies no
+    harsher sound to have been heard from the Palace windows than the
+    "tuning of the tea-things," or the sound of a pianoforte.
+
+[Sidenote: KENSINGTON PALACE.]
+
+The associations of Kensington Palace are almost entirely with the earlier
+Hanoverian reigns; the later Georges neglected it. Rumour hath it that
+this royal domain originated in the establishment of a nursery for the
+children of Henry VIII. If it were so, Elizabeth and Victoria must have
+been brought up on the same spot; but the tradition is not well supported.
+Its first ascertained proprietor was Heneage Finch, Speaker of the House
+of Commons at the accession of the First Charles, who built and occupied
+only a small nucleus of the present structure, which was enlarged from
+time to time by most of its successive occupants, but with no pretension,
+and without much plan. From the second Earl of Nottingham, the grandson of
+Finch, William III. bought the house and grounds. The latter he enlarged
+to the extent of twenty-six acres. To these Anne added thirty, and to
+these in turn Queen Caroline, wife of George II., added three hundred.
+The house had been the while proportionately growing. Its last expansion
+was contributed by the Duke of Sussex.
+
+The gardens were pedantically squared to Dutch uniformity by William of
+Orange, and the semblance of a Court which he held in this Palace was
+correspondingly gloomy and dismal. The most singular visitor ever received
+by William was the Czar Peter, who drove hither _incognito_ in a hackney
+coach, on his arrival in London, and was afterwards entertained here with
+some slight show of state. In Anne's time, the palace and gardens were
+little livelier than in William's. The Queen hedged herself in behind
+absurd _chevaux-de-frise_ of etiquette, and the court chroniclers of the
+period record little else than eating and drinking. Swift and Prior,
+Bolingbroke and Marlborough, Addison and Steele, nevertheless, lent
+occasional gleams of brightness and dignity to the otherwise sombre scene.
+
+The most fascinating and memorable association of Kensington Palace is in
+connection with the Courts of the first two Georges, and of the son of the
+latter, Frederick Prince of Wales. These associations are specially
+connected with the bevies of frolicsome, and sometimes frail, maids of
+honour, who now live in the pages of Pope and Gay, of Hervey and Walpole.
+Chief among them was the gay, sprightly, and irresistible Molly Leppell,
+who resisted, in a manner equally indignant and comical, the degrading
+overtures of the coarse-souled George II. She married Hervey, the most
+effeminate and egregious dandy of his time. Chesterfield thus toasted her
+in a ballad on the beauties of the Court;--
+
+    Oh! if I had Bremen and Varden,
+      And likewise the Duchy of Zell,
+    I'd part with them all for a farden,
+      To have my dear Molly Leppell.
+
+Caroline of Anspach, consort of Frederick, Prince of Wales, introduced the
+habit of promenading in gorgeous costume in the gardens, first on
+Saturday, then on Sunday, afternoons. By degrees the quality were admitted
+as well as the royal family and their immediate attendants. The liberty
+was gradually extended to the general public. Hence it was that Kensington
+Gardens became in time as open to all comers as are the royal parks. These
+gorgeous promenades ceased with the commencement of the last malady of
+George III. It was in allusion to the stately train of attendant beauties
+who accompanied the Princess Caroline of Wales, that Tickell wrote--
+
+    Each walk, with robes of various dyes bespread,
+    Seems from afar a moving tulip bed,
+    Where rich brocades and glossy damasks glow,
+    And chintz, the rival of the showery bow.
+    Here England's Daughter, darling of the land,
+    Sometimes, surrounded with her virgin band,
+    Gleams through the shades. She, towering o'er the rest,
+    Stands fairest of the fairer kind confess'd;
+    Form'd to gain hearts that Brunswick's cause denied,
+    And charm a people to her father's side.
+
+With the death of George II., the glory departed from Kensington. No
+future English King favoured or frequented it. George III. never resided
+in the Palace, and it was altogether too dull and homely for his eldest
+son. He was willing enough that his bookish brother Sussex, and his steady
+brother Kent, should abide in it; and, as one writer puts it, depicting
+the "first gentleman in Europe" in a light far from pleasing, but for the
+use of which we fear there was too much foundation--"He was well content
+to think that the staid-looking house and formal gardens rendered the spot
+a good out-of-the-way sort of place enough, for obscuring the growth and
+breeding of his niece and probable heiress, the Princess Victoria, whose
+life, under the guidance of a wise mother, promised to furnish so
+estimable a contrast to his own."
+
+[Sidenote: WILBERFORCE AND THE PRINCESS.]
+
+It was in the rooms, rich with such varied associations as those, some few
+of which we have cited, and surrounded by the remarkable collection of
+pictures, chiefly by Byzantine and early German painters--that England's
+future Queen grew up from babyhood to womanhood. Amongst the very earliest
+notices of the infant Princess is the following, which we cite from a
+letter written by Wilberforce to his friend, Hannah More, on the 21st
+July, 1820. He says:--
+
+    In consequence of a very civil message from the Duchess of Kent, I
+    waited on her this morning. She received me with her fine animated
+    child on the floor by her side, with its playthings, of which I soon
+    became one. She was very civil; but, as she did not sit down, I did
+    not think it right to stay above a quarter of an hour; and there being
+    but a female attendant and footman present, I could not well get up
+    any topic, so as to carry on a continued discourse. She apologised for
+    not speaking English well enough to talk it; but intimated a hope that
+    she might talk it better and longer with me at some future time. She
+    spoke of her situation [this was, probably, in reference to the cold
+    treatment of her and hers by George IV.], and her manner was quite
+    delightful.
+
+Four years later, the Duchess and the little Princess paid one of many
+visits to Ramsgate: and it would appear that the Duchess of Kent had
+already succeeded in being able to talk English "better and longer" with
+Wilberforce "at some future time;" for an eye-witness, who was familiar
+with all the group, witnessed the following scene. It was a fine summer
+day: too warm anywhere but on the shore of the sea, the breeze from which
+sufficiently moderated the temperature. A little girl, with a fair, light
+form, was sporting on the sands in all the redolence of youth and health.
+Her dress was simple--plain straw bonnet, with a white riband round the
+crown, a coloured muslin frock, and "as pretty a pair of shoes, on as
+pretty a pair of feet, as I ever remember to have seen from China to
+Kamschatka"--so testifies the authority from whom we quote. The child had
+two companions--her mother and William Wilberforce. The latter looked as
+lovingly on the child as did her mother. His kindly eye followed with
+tender interest her every footstep, and he was evidently meditating on the
+great destiny which was in store for her, when her mother, less
+meditative, more concerned with the affairs of the present, suddenly
+observed that her daughter had got her shoe's wetted by a breaker. She
+waved her hand, and Victoria, obedient to the signal, at once rejoined her
+mother and her friend. Perhaps another motive might have been at work in
+the mother's breast; for immediately the child had joined the elders,
+Wilberforce took her hand in both of his, and addressed to her some kindly
+words, doubtless of excellent counsel, for the blue eyes of the girl
+looked fixedly at her venerable instructor, and the devoted mother glanced
+from one to the other, evidently interested and affected by the contrast.
+Wilberforce was no wearisome restrainer of the buoyancy of youth; a few
+minutes later, he and his young companion were standing at the margin of
+the tide, watching the encroachments of each new breaker, and the
+dexterity with which a pet Newfoundland dog brought bits of stick out of
+the waves.
+
+[Sidenote: MORAL TRAINING.]
+
+During the earliest years of her childhood, Victoria does not seem to have
+been harassed with book-learning--a most wise and excellent omission. In
+1823, the Dowager Duchess of Coburg wrote to her daughter--"Do not yet
+tease your little puss with learning; she is so young still." The Queen's
+mother followed the good advice; it was the cultivation of the heart of
+her child at which she first strove. Above everything, any approach to
+pride or hauteur was discouraged. The convictions equally with the natural
+temperament of the Duchess, led her to regard such a quality as specially
+to be avoided. She was trained to be courteous, affable, lively, and to
+put social inferiors perfectly at their ease. In her juvenile sea-side and
+other excursions, it was constantly observed by every one that the faces
+of the bathing-women, and others of the same class, whose services were
+needed, lighted up with genuine, unaffected gladness whenever the young
+Princess appeared. The following little picture deserves to be reproduced,
+without tampering with the colours of its portrayer:--"As she proceeded up
+the High Street from the sands, there sat on the low step of a closed shop
+an aged Irishwoman, pale, wan, dejected, sorrowful, her head bent forward,
+and whilst all nature was gay, she looked sickly, sad, and famishing.
+Whether she was too depressed to beg, or too exhausted at that moment to
+make the effort, I cannot tell, but she asked for no alms, and even
+looked not at the passers-by. The young Princess was attracted by her
+appearance, and spoke to the Duchess: 'I think not,' were the only words I
+heard from her mamma; and, 'Oh, yes, indeed!' was all I could catch of the
+youthful reply. I have no doubt the Duchess thought the old woman was not
+in need of relief, or would be offended by the offer of alms; but the
+Princess had looked under her bonnet, and gained a better insight into her
+condition. There was a momentary pause; the Princess ran back a few steps
+most nimbly, and with a smile of heartfelt delight placed some silver in
+the hands of the old Irishwoman. Tall and stately was the poor creature,
+and as she rose slowly with clasped hands and riveted features, she
+implored the blessing of Heaven on the 'English lady.' She was so taken by
+surprise by this unexpected mark of beneficence on the part of she knew
+not whom, that she turned over her sixpences again and again, thanked the
+Virgin, as well as the 'young lady,' a thousand times, and related to
+those who stopped to hear her exclamations, the 'good luck' that had come
+upon her."
+
+[Sidenote: THE QUEEN'S CHILDHOOD.]
+
+While still not a year old, and ere her father's death, the intensity of
+interest which the people took in the safety and welfare of the Princess
+had been strongly displayed in the universal satisfaction which was
+expressed at her providential escape from being wounded, if not killed, in
+consequence of some boys shooting at birds near the temporary residence of
+the Duke at Sidmouth. Some of the shots penetrated the window of the
+nursery, and passed very near the child's head. This universal interest
+became yet deeper, when, after the lapse of two or three years, both of
+the daughters of the Duke of Clarence having died, and there being no
+probability of any issue in the line of either the Dukes of York or
+Clarence, she became the eventual successor to the throne, in the event of
+the deaths of these two elder brothers of her father. It was now learned
+with delight that she passed through the ordinary maladies of childhood
+favourably, and that her recovery from them was speedy. The public had
+ample opportunities afforded them of observing her growing and healthful
+strength; and all commented with pleasure upon the circumstance that she
+was not kept secluded from the view and observation of the people, that
+her rides and walks were generally in public, that she was growing up
+towards maturity in the sight of the nation, and as the child of the
+country. It was further a matter of great general rejoicing that those who
+were selected, even from the earliest period, to surround her person were
+of the most irreproachable character, and that moral worth was sought for
+in her preceptors even more than brilliant attainments.
+
+It is especially worthy of notice that the Duke and Duchess of Clarence,
+their hearts not being made in the slightest degree callous or soured by
+their own melancholy bereavements and the disappointment of their fondest
+hopes, formed and displayed for their niece a sincere and warm attachment.
+They took from the very first the warmest interest in all her vicissitudes
+and illnesses; and when they became King and Queen their elevated
+positions only seemed to increase the warmth of their regard, and the
+copious flow of their practical kindness. It was, therefore, no wonder
+that when, under Providence, Victoria became Queen she treated the Queen
+Dowager with most unequivocal respect and esteem, regarding her
+suggestions with deference, and her wishes with loving compliance.
+
+Spite of many sinister rumours, the Princess grew up strong and vigorous.
+Her mother was especially careful to fortify her constitution, and so to
+prepare it to encounter the hard work and manifold anxiety which are the
+inevitable lot of a British sovereign. Many there were--some of them with
+ends of their own to gain--who kept prophesying that "the daughter of the
+Duke of Kent would never attain her legal majority;" or, that "she would
+never marry;" again, that "she could never become the mother of a family."
+Much alarm was caused by these prognostications. For one thing was above
+all others ardently desired by the nation--that the Duke of Cumberland,
+who stood next in succession after the Princess, should never become King
+of England. Even if he had not been an object of something more than
+suspicion, it was universally desired that England should never again
+(after King William's death) be united with Hanover under one monarch. But
+as facts became known by degrees about the Princess, as her healthy face
+and agile frame became familiar in London, and in many parts of the land,
+the apprehensions died away, and the "frail, delicate, sickly child,"
+whose fabricated ailments had been made the subject of so much sham
+sympathy, was looked upon as a fabulous invention.
+
+[Sidenote: LEARNING TO READ.]
+
+It soon became known that her physical and mental characteristics were of
+a nature directly the opposite of what had been so industriously reported.
+She was extremely active, and had a healthy love of sports and games. She
+had an inquiring mind, not only restless in the pursuit, but clear in the
+comprehension of knowledge. She soon developed, too, much decision of
+character. Seemingly incapable of fatigue, she was the first to begin, and
+the last to leave off, a study, a romp, a game, a new duty, and equally
+eager to resume an old occupation. This peculiarity, it was gladly
+observed, was an inheritance from her father; but her mother also set her
+a congenial example of industry and perseverance. Such stories as the
+following were gleefully passed throughout the land from lip to lip. While
+she was learning her alphabet, she, doubtful of the utility of being so
+tormented, ejaculated--"What good this?--what good this?" She was told
+that "mamma could know all that was contained in the great book on the
+table because she knew _her_ letters, whilst the little daughter could
+not." This was quite enough, and the young acolyte of the alphabet cried
+out, "I learn, too--I learn, too--very quick." And she did become rapidly
+mistress of her letters. Her mother sought to teach her to be satisfied
+with simple pleasures, and here she was a most apt pupil. Once, when she
+was so young that she could not express what she felt, she dragged her
+uncle Clarence to the window to observe a beautiful sunset. To her uncle
+Leopold, too, she was constantly pointing out objects of natural beauty,
+on which he invariably improved the opportunity by giving her prompt and
+clear explanations of the phenomena which evoked her admiration. Her
+engrossing passion, indeed--as was that of her future husband--was for
+cabinets of natural history, menageries, museums, &c. For pictures she had
+an equal love, and one of the first acquirements in which she became
+proficient was sketching from nature.
+
+Perhaps the greatest danger she incurred, and the one which her mother had
+to take the greatest pains to avert, was the likelihood that her
+independent decision of character, which she derived from the Hanoverian
+half of her ancestry, might degenerate into stubbornness and self-will.
+But her natural sense of justice, and ready openness to clear conviction,
+proved an admirable counterpoise. With peculiar ingenuousness of
+character, she unreservedly admitted an error the very instant she
+perceived it. Once, for example, when on a visit to Earl Fitzwilliam, a
+bosom friend of her father, the party were walking in the grounds, and she
+had run on in advance. An under-gardener cautioned her not to go down a
+certain walk, as, said he, in his provincial dialect, the rain had made
+the ground "slape." "Slape! slape!" cried she, rapidly, and in the true
+George III. style; "and pray, what is 'slape?'" "Very slippery, miss--your
+Royal Highness--ma'am," replied he. "Oh! that's all," she replied; "thank
+you," and at once proceeded. She had not advanced many yards, when she
+came down heavily to the ground. The Earl had been observing all that had
+passed, from a few yards' distance, and he cried out, "There! now your
+Royal Highness has an explanation of the term 'slape,' both theoretically
+and practically." "Yes, my lord," she somewhat meekly said, "I think I
+have. I shall never forget the word 'slape.'" On a similar occasion, when
+cautioned not to frolic with a dog whose temper was not very reliable, she
+persisted in doing so, and he made a snap at her hand. Her cautioner ran
+solicitously, believing that she had been bitten. "Oh, thank you! thank
+you!" said she. "You're right, and I am wrong; but he didn't bite me--he
+only warned me. I shall be careful in future."
+
+[Sidenote: JUVENILE ANECDOTES.]
+
+The following incident shows that at least on some occasions a keen spirit
+of waggishness entered strongly into her self-will. When first she took
+lessons on the piano, she objected strongly to the monotonous fingering,
+as she had formerly done to A B C. She was, of course, informed that all
+success as a musician depended upon her first becoming "mistress of the
+piano."
+
+"Oh, I am to be mistress of my piano, am I?" asked she. To that the reply
+was a repetition of the statement.
+
+"Then what would you think of me if I became mistress at once?"
+
+"That would be impossible. There is no royal road to music. Experience and
+great practice are essential."
+
+"Oh, there is no royal road to music, eh? No royal road? And I am not
+mistress of my pianoforte? But I will be, I assure you; and the royal road
+is this"--at the same time closing the piano, locking it, and taking the
+key--"There! that's being mistress of the piano! and the royal road to
+learning is, never to take a lesson till you're in the humour to do it."
+
+After the laugh which her joke had provoked in herself and others had
+subsided, she at once volunteered to resume the lesson.
+
+We cannot more fitly conclude this chapter, ere we proceed to travel an
+important stage further in our attempt to trace the youthful days of the
+Queen, than by presenting a picture of her, as she appeared at this period
+of her life to the genial eyes of Leigh Hunt, to whom we have been
+already indebted at the commencement of this chapter:--
+
+    We remember well the peculiar kind of personal pleasure which it gave
+    us to see the future Queen, the first time we ever did see her, coming
+    up a cross path from the Bayswater Gate, with a girl of her own age by
+    her side, whose hand she was holding, as if she loved her. It brought
+    to our mind the warmth of our own juvenile friendships, and made us
+    fancy that she loved everything else that we had loved in like
+    measure--books, trees, verses, Arabian tales, and the good mother who
+    had helped to make her so affectionate. A magnificent footman, in
+    scarlet, came behind her, with the splendidest pair of calves, in
+    white stockings, that we had ever beheld. He looked somehow like a
+    gigantic fairy, personating, for his little lady's sake, the grandest
+    footman he could think of; and his calves he seemed to have made out
+    of a couple of the biggest chaise-lamps in the possession of the
+    godmother of Cinderella. As the Princess grew up, the world seemed
+    never to hear of her except as it wished to hear--that is to say, in
+    connection with her mother; and now it never hears of her but in
+    connection with children of her own, and her husband, and her mother
+    still [this was written in 1855], and all good household pleasures and
+    hospitalities, and public virtues of a piece with them. May life ever
+    continue to appear to her what, indeed, it really is to all who have
+    eyes for seeing beyond the surface--namely, a wondrous fairy scene,
+    strange, beautiful, mournful too, yet hopeful of being "happy ever
+    after," when its story is over; and wise, meantime, in seeing much
+    where others see nothing, in shedding its tears patiently, and in
+    doing its best to diminish the tears around it.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V.
+
+EDUCATION OF THE PRINCESS VICTORIA.
+
+    Additional Grant by Parliament for the Maintenance and Education of
+    the Princess--Wise Lessons learned at her Mother's Knees--A Visit to
+    George IV. at Windsor--Assiduous Pursuit of Knowledge--Accession of
+    William IV.--Victoria becomes next in succession to the Crown--Regency
+    Bill--Satisfaction of the good Grandmother at Coburg--Her Death--Joy
+    of Victoria at the Elevation of her Uncle to the Belgian
+    Throne--Parliamentary Inquiry into the Progress of her
+    Education--Satisfactory Report in Response--Presented at Court--Great
+    Ball on her Twelfth Birthday at St. James's Palace--Court Scandal and
+    Baseless Rumours--The Duchess of Northumberland appointed
+    Governess--The Princess and the Poet Southey.
+
+
+The time had now arrived when, in the opinion, not only of the private
+friends of the Duchess of Kent, but of the Ministers of the Crown, it was
+held that a more liberal provision should be made for the increasing cost
+of the training of the Princess, than the very moderate annual allowance
+which the Duchess of Kent had as yet received. This matter was formally
+brought before Parliament on the occasion of the Princess attaining her
+sixth birthday. Up to this date, and for some little time subsequently to
+it, King George IV. seems to have hardly paid the slightest heed to his
+niece and ultimate successor. On her fifth birthday, Prince Leopold, who
+throughout filled a true father's place, gave a banquet in her honour, at
+which most of the members of the English Royal Family, and the Prince
+Leiningen, son of the Duchess of Kent and half-brother of Victoria, were
+present. On this occasion, the child was much admired for her frankness,
+quickness, and talent, but especially for her deep attachment to her
+mother. Her mother took occasion to impress upon her the consideration
+that such attentions as those which were then shown her were rendered in
+the hope that she would cultivate the qualities and graces which alone
+could make her a worthy and acceptable ruler of the British empire. "It is
+not you," said she, "but your future office and rank which are regarded by
+the country; and you must so act as never to bring that office and that
+rank into disgrace or disrespect." And when the Duchess took her child to
+see for the first time the statue which had just been erected at the top
+of Portland Place to her father's memory, she was careful to make her know
+and feel that "dear papa's likeness was placed there, not merely because
+he was a prince, but because he was a good man, was kind to the poor,
+caused little boys and girls to be taught to read and write, helped to get
+money from good people to cure the sick, the lame, the blind, the deaf,
+and did all he could to make bad people good."
+
+In May, 1825, the sixth birthday of the Princess arrived. It became
+desirable, not merely to extend the sphere of her knowledge, but to
+introduce her to society at unavoidable expense; and, when she appeared in
+public and took trips in the country, to surround her with some of the
+splendour which properly belonged to her position. Accordingly, Lord
+Liverpool, the Premier, presented a Message from the King, requesting that
+some provision should be made for the Princess. His lordship spoke in the
+highest terms of the Duchess of Kent; eulogised her for having supported
+and educated her daughter without making any application to Parliament;
+and demonstrated, that her education must, from that date, be much more
+wide and costly. He proposed an additional grant of £6,000 per annum to
+the Duchess, to continue throughout the minority of her daughter. The
+House of Lords cordially acquiesced in the proposal. In the Lower House,
+Mr. Brougham, although uniting mother and daughter in one common eulogy,
+objected to the amount proposed. Mr. Hume supported him, suggesting an
+annuity increasing from year to year; but, on a division, the original
+proposal was carried by a majority of fifty.
+
+[Sidenote: GEORGE IV. AND THE PRINCESS VICTORIA.]
+
+Only after this formal act of national recognition does it appear that the
+King deigned to turn his personal attention in the direction of his niece.
+The year after, we find the Duchess of Coburg writing to her daughter, and
+referring to the fact that she had seen by the English papers, that "His
+Majesty, Her Royal Highness the Duchess of Kent, and the Princess
+Victoria, went on Virginia Water." "The little monkey," she writes, "must
+have pleased him. She is such a pretty, clever child." It was reported at
+the time that the King, on the occasion of this visit to Windsor, shared
+the general delight at the intelligence and sprightliness of his charming
+little niece. He caused her to dine in state with him, and when he asked
+her what tune she would like the band to play during dinner, she
+courteously and naïvely replied, "God save the King."
+
+The years intervening until 1830 were passed in almost complete quietude
+and seclusion by the Princess; her education being now most assiduously
+pursued.
+
+The year 1830 made an important difference in the position of the
+Princess. By the death of George IV., the Duke of Clarence became King,
+and--the Duke of York having died in 1827--she now stood next in direct
+succession to the throne. In the last month of the year a Regency Bill was
+passed, of which these were the chief provisions:--In the event of Queen
+Adelaide bearing a posthumous child, Her Majesty should be guardian and
+Regent during the minority. If that event should not occur, the Duchess of
+Kent was to be guardian and Regent during the minority of her daughter,
+the Princess Victoria, the heiress-presumptive. That Princess should not
+marry while a minor, without the consent of the King; or, if he died,
+without the consent of both Houses. When the Report of the Regency Bill
+was brought up, Lord Lyndhurst moved and carried a clause to the effect
+that in case the Duchess of Kent should marry a foreigner in the lifetime
+of His Majesty, but without his consent, she should, by that act, forfeit
+all pretensions to the Regency.
+
+The Duke of Buckingham, in his "Courts and Cabinets of William IV. and
+Victoria," thus remarked on this proviso:--
+
+    The position of the Princess attracted towards her Royal Highness the
+    solicitude and sympathy of all classes of the people. A proper
+    consideration of her chance of succeeding to the throne showed that
+    there was much at stake, and the bitter disappointment caused by the
+    untimely fate of the last female heiress presumptive, gave deeper
+    feeling to the interest with which she was regarded. It was desirable
+    that her youth should be, as much as possible, watched over to protect
+    it from all evil contingencies, and though there could not be a better
+    guardian for the Princess than the one nature had provided her with,
+    the anxiety of a nation demanded precautions that, under other
+    circumstances, would have been considered totally unnecessary. We can
+    now (1861) afford to smile on the jealous affection with which Her
+    Royal Highness was fenced round thirty years ago.
+
+[Sidenote: THE QUEEN'S GRANDMOTHER.]
+
+The satisfactory settlement of the Regency question gave great
+satisfaction to the good grandmother at Coburg. She wrote to her daughter,
+on receipt of the news--
+
+    I should have been sorry if the Regency had been given into other
+    hands than yours. It would not have been a just return for your
+    constant devotion and care to your child, if this had not been done.
+    May God give you wisdom and strength to do your duty, if called upon
+    to undertake it. May God bless and protect my little darling!--If I
+    could but once see her again! The print you have sent to me is not
+    like the dear picture I have; the quantity of curls hide the
+    well-shaped head, and make it look too large for the lovely little
+    figure.
+
+It was not fated that the Duchess of Coburg should ever see her
+granddaughter again; she died within a twelvemonth of writing the above.
+Her latest letters to her daughter were characterised by a peculiar warmth
+of affection for the Princess. Writing in the summer of 1830, on the
+occasion of Victoria's birthday, she said--
+
+    My blessings and good wishes for the day which gave you the sweet
+    Blossom of May! May God preserve and protect the valuable life of that
+    lovely flower from all the dangers that will beset her mind and heart!
+
+And when the news of the death of George IV. reached her, she wrote--
+
+    God bless Old England, where my beloved children live, and where the
+    sweet Blossom of May may one day reign! May God yet for many years
+    keep the weight of a crown from her young head, and let the
+    intelligent, clever child grow up to girlhood, before this dangerous
+    grandeur devolves upon her!
+
+England owes a deep debt of gratitude to this excellent and intelligent
+woman, for to her we are indebted for that training of her daughter, which
+fitted that daughter to train in turn, for us and for our advantage, Queen
+Victoria.
+
+An event of considerable influence upon the well-being and happiness of
+the Queen we must not omit to chronicle, ere we pass onwards in the course
+of our narrative. Prince Leopold had been designated by the great
+guaranteeing Powers as the ruler of the newly emancipated state of Greece.
+He was prepared to accept the position. This distressed his niece, who had
+been brought up under his kindly tutelage from her birth; but
+circumstances which it does not concern our purpose to dwell upon, induced
+Leopold to break off the Greek negotiation. Shortly after, to the great
+delight of Victoria, he was nominated by the Powers, and accepted by his
+future subjects, as King of the Belgians. This ensured his being
+constantly comparatively near to his niece. How frequent were his visits
+to England, as long as his life lasted, no resident in London needs to be
+informed; up till within the last few years, his face was almost as
+familiar in the parks as those of the members of the Queen's own family.
+He often appeared in London suddenly, and without announcement, having
+been summoned, it was generally believed, on such occasions, to consult
+with the Queen on some point of imminent moment. Such summonses he always
+responded to with instant alacrity.
+
+[Sidenote: ABSURD RUMOURS.]
+
+In the year 1831, the public became anxious to know how the education of
+the heiress-presumptive to the throne progressed; what was the nature of
+her studies, and which she preferred and most diligently pursued. Prompt,
+responsive, and satisfactory statements were rendered. It appeared that
+since the accession of King William, her tuition had been almost entirely
+entrusted to English teachers. Mr. Amos instructed her in the principles
+of the English Constitution, Mr. Westall in drawing; she had made
+considerable progress in Latin, and could read Horace with fluency. It was
+further stated that her love of music was enthusiastic, and that it was
+the orchestral rather than the dramatic attraction that caused her to
+frequent the theatres so much as she did. It was remarked that, on the
+occasion of the coronation of William IV., which took place on the 8th of
+September, neither the Princess nor her mother were present. Their absence
+was explained by the announcement, that the health of the Princess
+rendered a sojourn in the Isle of Wight necessary. Prudent persons held
+that, even had it been otherwise, her tender years and peculiar position
+rendered her absence preferable to her presence. She was but twelve years
+old, and it was commonly stated that only a year before had it been deemed
+wise _fully_ to make her aware of the regal destiny which was before her.
+Gossip-mongers--a whole host of whom circulated the most absurd rumours
+about the Princess from her most tender years until long after she had
+become Queen--alleged that the real reason of her absence was the fact
+that her proper place in the ceremony was not assigned to her. The real
+truth we believe to have been as follows. Since the accession of her uncle
+Clarence, Victoria had been plunged into a round of gaiety which did not
+at all comport either with her years or a certain fragility of health,
+which now for a short time succeeded the fine animal power and spirits of
+the years preceding. She had been presented at the first drawing-room held
+by Queen Adelaide, the most magnificent that had been held since the
+presentation of Charlotte, Princess of Wales, on the occasion of her
+marriage. This was her first appearance in state. She arrived with her
+mother, attended by the Duchess of Northumberland, Lady Charlotte St.
+Maur, Lady Catherine Jenkinson, the Honourable Mrs. Cust, Lady Conroy, the
+Baroness Lehzen, Sir J. Conroy, and General Wetherall. Her dress was made
+entirely of articles manufactured in Great Britain, and consisted of a
+simple, modest, and becoming blonde frock. She was the great object of
+interest present, stood on the left of the King, and contemplated the
+_élite_ of her future subjects with a dignified amiability which charmed
+every one. On her twelfth birthday, in the same year, she was overwhelmed
+with presents; amongst others, two beautiful ponies, presented by the
+Duchess of Gordon, which became especial pets. The Queen gave a juvenile
+ball in her honour, which Queen Victoria has often talked of in later
+times, as the scene which of all others made the deepest impression on her
+childish imagination. Spite of all this, and of the notorious and profuse
+kindness with which the King and Queen Adelaide had always treated her,
+many were found to believe that they were jealous of, and meant to slight
+her. The truth was, that the Duchess of Northumberland, who, at the
+suggestion of the King himself, had been appointed to the high and
+important office of governess to the Princess, began to be alarmed at the
+consequences of so much festivity and excitement. She objected to her
+frequent attendance at drawing-rooms, and also recommended absence from
+the fatiguing coronation ceremony.
+
+[Sidenote: THE PRINCESS AND SOUTHEY.]
+
+The selection of this lady for the important office which she filled was a
+wise one, and the public judgment approved it. She possessed great
+personal attractions, mental powers of unusual range, and the highest
+rank. The appointment was by no means a nominal one, or one merely of
+state. Her visits to Kensington Palace were constant, and she frequently
+remained there all day. On one occasion, while her Grace was instructing
+her pupil, Southey called, and was greeted by the Princess and the
+_gouvernante_ very warmly. He conversed for some time with the ladies;
+first on poetry, then on history. He afterwards used to state with pride,
+that the Princess told him that she read his prose and poetical
+compositions with equal delight. The "Life of Nelson" especially charmed
+her. "That," she said, "is a delightful book indeed; and I am sure I could
+read it half a dozen times over." The gossip-mongers also alleged that the
+Duchess endeavoured to give a political bias to the education of the
+Princess. Some uneasiness was created at this. But when the matter was
+properly inquired into, it was ascertained that, neither in the selection
+of books to be studied, nor in the remarks made upon their text, was the
+slightest party colour given to the education of the royal pupil of the
+Duchess. It was while under the care of this lady that the Princess
+acquired her well-known admirable horsemanship. To Fozard, the best
+riding-master of the day, was entrusted her tuition in riding. She soon
+became distinguished by the ease of her carriage, and her truly royal air
+and demeanour. This was a common subject of admiring remark by
+distinguished foreigners; amongst others, by Count Orloff, to whom, in
+1832, the Duchess of Kent gave a splendid banquet. The Princess, after she
+was removed from the active care of the Duchess of Northumberland, gave
+the best proof of her gratitude and sense of the services she had rendered
+her, by keeping up with her Grace a constant epistolary correspondence.
+Wherever she went, in the many tours through England which she made while
+passing through her teens, she wrote letters to the Duchess describing
+whatever interested and instructed her in what she saw. This
+correspondence was really a voluntary continuation of her education.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+THE PRINCESS IN HER TEENS.
+
+    Visits paid to many parts of England--Love of Cathedrals and Church
+    Music--Trip to North Wales and the Midland Counties--Visit to a Cotton
+    Mill--To Oxford--Gala Day at Southampton--Interview with the Young
+    Queen of Portugal--Confirmation of the Princess--Tour to the
+    North--York Musical Festival--At Ramsgate with the King of the
+    Belgians--A Noble Deed at Tunbridge Wells.
+
+
+In the year subsequent to the coronation of King William, the Duchess of
+Kent and her daughter spent much time in making visits to various parts of
+England. We have already seen that they were in the Isle of Wight at the
+date of the coronation. The same year, they spent some time at Worthing,
+and visited Lord Liverpool and his daughters at Buxted Park, whence they
+proceeded to Malvern, where their liberal relief of distress caused them
+to be much beloved. While at Malvern, they visited the cathedral at
+Worcester. Cathedrals were especial favourites with the Princess, and
+Church music gratified her as much as ecclesiastical architecture. To the
+public institutions of the cathedral cities which she visited she was an
+invariable benefactress, and willingly beggared herself of all her
+pocket-money that she might be the better able to meet the demands of art,
+science, literature, and poverty upon her benevolence. This year they also
+visited Hereford and Bath, and were magnificently entertained by the Earls
+Somers and Beauchamp, at Eastnor Castle and Maddresfield Court.
+
+[Sidenote: AN AUTUMNAL TOUR.]
+
+In 1831, they sojourned for a time at Claremont, in the Isle of Wight, and
+at Weymouth. The next year chronicled a more extensive autumnal tour than
+any hitherto undertaken. To North Wales they repaired first. Having seen
+its romantic beauties, they reached the ancient city of Chester on the
+17th of October and on entering the cathedral were respectfully received
+and courteously addressed by the Bishop. The Duchess of Kent thus replied
+to the welcome of the Prelate:--"I cannot better allude to your good
+feeling towards the Princess than by joining fervently in the wish that
+she may set an example in her conduct of that piety towards God, and
+charity towards man, which is the only sure foundation either of
+individual happiness or national prosperity." From Chester they proceeded
+to Eaton Hall, the palatial residence of the Grosvenors and thence to
+Chatsworth, the still more splendid abode of the Cavendish family. From
+Chatsworth they went to Belper, where they examined the cotton mills of
+the Messrs. Strutt, and were most cordially received by the numerous
+factory hands. Mr. James Strutt, by means of a model, explained to the
+Princess the several processes of cotton-spinning, which she listened to
+with keen attention and ready apprehension. The Queen retained a lively
+and fragrant recollection of this visit; and, years after, she created the
+son of her _cicerone_ a peer, by the title of Lord Belper. The week
+following they visited Hardwicke Hall, Chesterfield, and Matlock. Thence
+they proceeded to Shugborough, the seat of the Earl of Lichfield. Their
+next honoured entertainer was the Earl of Shrewsbury, at Alton Towers.
+While there, they visited Lichfield Cathedral and graciously received
+congratulatory addresses from the clergy and corporation. Their next stage
+was the seat of Lord Liverpool, who was one of the staunchest friends of
+the Duchess of Kent, of whom his daughter, Lady Catherine Jenkinson, was
+one of the Ladies-in-waiting. Proceeding homewards, they honoured with
+successive visits Earl Powis, the Hon. R. H. Clive, M.P., the Earls of
+Plymouth and Abingdon. From the seat of the latter they went to Oxford,
+which city they entered with an escort of yeomanry. The Vice-Chancellor
+presented an appropriate address in the Theatre, which was crowded with
+the celebrities of the University. The Duchess of Kent made the following
+answer:--
+
+    We close a most interesting journey by a visit to this University,
+    that the Princess may see, as far as her years will allow, all that is
+    interesting in it. The history of our country has taught her to know
+    its importance by the many distinguished persons who, by their
+    character and talents, have been raised to eminence by the education
+    they have received in it. Your loyalty to the King, and recollection
+    of the favour you have enjoyed under the paternal sway of his house,
+    could not fail, I was sure, to lead you to receive his niece with all
+    the disposition you evince to make this visit agreeable and
+    instructive to her. It is my object to insure, by all means in my
+    power, her being so educated as to meet the just expectation of all
+    classes in this great and free country.
+
+Their Royal Highnesses returned to Kensington on the 9th of November.
+
+In 1833, the rambles of mother and daughter did not extend beyond the
+south coast; Portsmouth, Weymouth, and the Isle of Wight being the
+respective halting-places. While residing at Norris, East Cowes, they
+attended the ceremony of opening the new landing-pier at the fast rising
+port of Southampton. A steamer towed the Royal yacht from Cowes into
+Southampton Water, where were waiting a deputation, representing the
+corporation of the town, in an eight-oared barge, with one of the
+town-sergeants standing with the silver oar in the leads. The deputation
+having stated the object of the day's ceremonial, the Duchess of Kent
+replied to the effect that she desired her daughter early to become
+attached to works of utility. They were then rowed ashore, amid the cheers
+of 25,000 spectators, and entertained at luncheon; subsequently, being
+requested to name the pier, the Duchess designated it the "Royal Pier."
+Countless festivities followed in the evening, and "the townspeople were
+almost as proud of the presence of the Princess, as of the completion of
+their pier."
+
+[Sidenote: THE PRINCESS AND A WIDOWED ACTRESS.]
+
+The year 1834 was that in which the Princess was confirmed. This holy rite
+was administered by the Archbishop of Canterbury, in the Chapel Royal, St.
+James's, in July. Next month, mother and daughter visited Tunbridge Wells;
+the month following they went northwards, visited the Archbishop of York
+at Bishopsthorpe, and attended the grand musical festival in his
+cathedral. On their homeward route, they were entertained by the Earls of
+Harewood and Fitzwilliam, and the Duke of Rutland; passed some time with
+the King and Queen of the Belgians, at Ramsgate, and finally visited the
+Duke of Wellington at Walmer Castle. An incident which occurred during
+their stay at Tunbridge, must not be omitted from our biography. The
+husband of one of the actresses in the small theatre of the place died,
+leaving an impoverished wife, who was just about to become a mother. The
+fact came to the knowledge of the Princess, and she applied to her mother
+for aid. She at once gave £10 to her daughter, who added an equal sum from
+her own purse; she became her own almoner, hastened to the afflicted
+woman, conversed with her, and continued to make inquiries about her
+condition. Nor did this end her care. When she came to the throne, three
+years later, she at once sent to the poor woman a kindly intimation that
+an annuity of £40 would be paid to her for life.
+
+Another series of visits, and renewed intercourse with the much-loved
+uncle and his young Orleanist wife at Ramsgate, filled the autumnal months
+of 1835.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII.
+
+EARLY DAYS OF PRINCE ALBERT.
+
+    Birth--Melancholy Story of his Mother--Brought up under the Care of
+    his two Excellent Grandmothers--His Winning Ways as a Child--His
+    Tutor, Florschütz--The Brothers, Ernest and Albert--Visit to Brussels,
+    and its Beneficial Effects--Hard Study--Tour through Germany,
+    &c.--First Visit to England, and Meeting with Victoria--Studies at
+    Brussels--Enters the University of Bonn--Tour to Switzerland and
+    Italy--Public Announcement of Betrothal--Leaves Coburg and Gotha for
+    his Marriage.
+
+
+[Sidenote: THE INFANT COUSINS VICTORIA AND ALBERT.]
+
+Albert, the second son of Duke Ernest I. of Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld, and his
+wife, the Princess Louise, daughter of the Duke of Saxe-Gotha-Altenburg,
+was born at the Rosenau, a charming summer residence belonging to the
+Duke, about four miles from Coburg, on the 26th of August, 1819. His
+mother is described as handsome, though of very diminutive proportions,
+fair, with blue eyes; and her son Albert, whom she idolised, closely
+resembled her. She was clever and entertaining; yet her marriage was an
+unhappy one, and a separation took place by mutual consent in 1824, after
+which date the Duchess never saw her children. Two years later the
+separation was turned into a divorce. The Prince never forgot her, but
+spoke of her to his dying day with much tenderness, and the very first
+gift which he ever made to the Princess Victoria was a little pin which
+his mother had given him. Not until the Prince was almost a young man did
+his mother die. When she died her race became extinct, save in the
+persons of her two sons. Many years later, her remains were brought to
+Coburg, and laid in the family mausoleum beside the Duke and his second
+wife. This mausoleum was not completed until 1860, in which year Queen
+Victoria deposited a votive wreath on the tomb of the mother of her
+husband. Prince Albert's paternal grandmother, the Duchess Dowager of
+Coburg, in writing to her daughter, the Duchess of Kent, announcing
+Albert's birth, lauded his beauty, and--little thinking how the fortunes
+of the two infant cousins were to be intertwined hereafter--thus concluded
+her communication:--"How pretty the _May Flower_ (the Princess Victoria,
+born the preceding May) will be when I see it in a year's time. Siebold
+cannot sufficiently describe what a dear little love it is. Une bonne
+fois, adieu! Kiss your husband and children." Siebold was an accoucheuse
+who had attended at the births of both the children. On the 19th of
+September the Prince was christened, and thus named:--Francis Charles
+Augustus Albert Emmanuel.
+
+The young Prince seems to have been adored as a child by all, whether
+relatives or others, who came in contact with him. "He leads captive,"
+said his fond mother, when he was two years old, "all hearts by his beauty
+and gentle grace." After the sad separation of his father from his mother,
+the Prince was brought up largely under the care of his father's mother,
+whom the Queen describes, from personal recollection, as "a most
+remarkable woman, with a most powerful, energetic, almost masculine mind,
+accompanied with great tenderness of heart, and extreme love for nature."
+Of an evening she used to tell to her two grandchildren, Ernest and
+Albert, the stories of Sir Walter Scott's novels, and, when they were old
+enough, employed them in writing letters to her dictation. She fondly
+described Albert, when he was not yet two years old, by the pet,
+diminutive name, "Alberinchen." And she says--"With his large blue eyes
+and dimpled cheeks, he is bewitching, forward, and quick as a weasel. He
+can already say everything." The step-maternal grandmother of the Prince
+too, second wife of his maternal grandfather, was sensible, kindly, and
+good, and took an interest in the children by no means inferior to that
+displayed by their own grandmother. With the former lady they spent very
+much of their time in their early years, at Gotha, and at her mansion in
+the vicinity of that town.
+
+When Albert was not yet four years old he, with his brother, was removed
+to the care of a tutor, Herr Florschütz, who most admirably discharged his
+duties, which he continued to fulfil until his pupils had become young
+men. With the assistance of masters for special subjects, he conducted the
+whole of their early educational training, and continued to control their
+studies until they left the University of Bonn. The two brothers, spite of
+the difference of about a twelvemonth in their ages, pursued all studies
+in common, and the closest brotherly love and amity united them from first
+to last.
+
+[Sidenote: BOYHOOD OF PRINCE ALBERT]
+
+The younger Prince was not nearly so robust as his brother, but his
+intellect was more vigorous, and his force of will decidedly greater; "he
+always held," said his uncle Leopold, "accordingly, a certain sway over
+his elder brother, who rather kindly submitted to it." The Princes were
+not much, in their early years, with their father, who was much from home,
+especially when settling the junction of the duchy of Gotha with his own
+of Coburg. The former he succeeded to partly in right of his wife, and
+partly by a mutual compact of exchange of territory, entered into with
+other reigning princes of the old Saxon stock. This period was passed by
+the Princes at Rosenau, with their tutor, varied by visits to the mansions
+of the two grandmothers.
+
+In a memorandum drawn up by Count Arthur Mensdorff, cousin of the Prince,
+he describes the young Albert when about ten years of age, at which period
+the cousins contracted a friendship which lasted unimpaired until the
+Prince's death. His disposition was mild and benevolent; nothing could
+make him angry, except anything unjust or dishonest. He was never wild or
+noisy, and his favourite study was natural history. He was a good mimic,
+and had a keen sense of the ludicrous; but he never pushed a joke to the
+extent of hurting one's feelings. His moral purity was as conspicuous as
+the meekness of his disposition.
+
+In November of 1831, the Princes suffered a great bereavement in the death
+of their admirable grandmother, the Duchess Dowager of Coburg; she died in
+the arms of her two eldest sons. She had, from an early period, formed the
+wish that a marriage should be contracted between her two grandchildren,
+Albert and Victoria.
+
+In 1832, the young Princes, in their turn, accompanied their father in a
+journey to visit their uncle, King Leopold. This was a most important
+event in the Prince's life; for, though the visit was of but short
+duration, the spectacle which he then saw, of a nation which had freed
+itself, and worked out its own destiny, had the strongest effect upon his
+mind and conscience, which thence grew in attachment to liberal
+principles. His deeply-rooted love of art, too, received a strong stimulus
+from the splendid architectural and artistic treasures of the old Belgian
+city. On his return from Brussels, being now about thirteen years old, he
+became remarkably studious, and vigorously set himself to the pursuit of
+an unusually comprehensive circle of subjects.
+
+The only recreation which he pursued with vigour was deer-stalking, and
+this most beneficially promoted the robustness of a frame as yet
+distinguished by delicacy. On Palm Sunday, 1835, he was confirmed, and his
+heart seems, at and from this period, to have come under the influence of
+religious convictions of peculiar depth and sincerity, though of singular
+freedom from all traces of bigotry.
+
+The confirmation of the Princes was immediately followed by a series of
+visits to various of their imperial, regal, princely, and noble relatives
+and friends throughout Germany and the provinces on the Danube. They
+visited in succession Mecklenburg, Berlin, Dresden, Prague, Vienna, Pesth,
+and Ofen. In May, 1836, the Princes came to England, on a visit to their
+aunt Kent. It was on this occasion that Albert and Victoria first met.
+
+On his return to the Continent from this his first and most gratifying
+visit to England, the Duke of Coburg placed Albert and his elder brother
+for a time under the care of their uncle at Brussels. A private house was
+taken for them, in which they pursued their studies under Dr. Drury, an
+English clergyman, who had been appointed their tutor. This gentleman
+recorded this testimony of his pupil, when, shortly afterwards, he was
+removed from his tutelage, and before any idea was entertained about his
+distinguished future position:--"His attainments are various, and solid
+too; his abilities are superior; his disposition amiable; his conduct
+unexceptionable; and, above all, his belief in, and his attachment to, the
+Protestant religion is sincere."
+
+[Sidenote: PRINCE ALBERT AT COLLEGE.]
+
+In the summer following (1837) the two brothers were entered as students
+of law, or, more correctly, of jurisprudence (_juris studiosi_), at the
+University of Bonn, the Oxford of Germany in respect to the high rank of
+some of its students, and standing in the very first place in point of
+intrinsic efficiency. The tutor Florschütz still accompanied the young
+men; and they benefited by the prelections of such men as Fichte, Perthes,
+and Augustus Schlegel. Prince Albert studied classics, mathematics, mental
+philosophy, political economy, history, and statistical science. In the
+last subject he had been well grounded at Brussels by the distinguished M.
+Quetelet, who formed the highest opinion of his pupil's powers and
+assiduity. He had, besides, private tutors for music and drawing, in both
+of which arts he was already well advanced. In the second stage of his
+curriculum his studies were specially devoted to jurisprudence and civil
+history. While at Bonn he displayed at once a talent for poetry and a
+benevolent heart, by the publication for the benefit of the poor of a
+collection of songs, which his brother set to meritorious musical
+accompaniments. He visited only among his princely fellow-students, and at
+the houses of the professors. His brother and he, though they occasionally
+gave courtly entertainments to their friends, lived in private a
+temperate and frugal life. He assiduously sought out the society of
+_savans_ and men of letters, especially loving to associate with
+Professors Welcker and Schlegel. The latter, though he detested the
+ordinary run of "princelings," was quite charmed by Albert, of whom he
+thought and spoke most highly. The Prince kept only three academical
+terms, and finally left the University, in September, 1838, leaving golden
+opinions everywhere behind him. Not the least hearty of his eulogists in
+after years was Peter Stamm, an hotel-keeper, who acted as gamekeeper to
+him on his shooting excursions, and who for years after pointed to English
+visitors the portrait of Prince Albert in his sitting-room, his eyes the
+while brimming over with glad tears. The University, after his marriage,
+conferred upon him the honorary degree of Doctor of Laws, and in the
+diploma pointed reference was made to his "summæ fortunæ magnitudinem ac
+gravitatem, summâ comitate, amabilique morum suavitate et humanitate."
+
+The winter of 1838-9 was passed by the Prince in a tour through
+Switzerland and Italy. After pursuing his journey as far as Naples, and
+omitting no locality of interest on the way, he came home by way of
+Vienna, and returned to the Castle of Ehrenberg in the summer of 1839. It
+has been stated that he found, on the wall of his room, a miniature of
+Queen Victoria, by Chalon, which she had sent to him as a gift in his
+absence; but we have not discovered any very reliable authority for the
+anecdote. In August, having completed his twentieth year, he was formally
+declared of age. He inherited from his mother landed estates amounting to
+£2,400 yearly value. These lands, we have reason to believe, he
+transferred to his brother upon the formal announcement of his engagement
+to Queen Victoria, subject only to pensions and allowances to certain
+persons who had belonged to his modest household.
+
+[Sidenote: PRINCE ALBERT'S BETROTHAL.]
+
+On the 8th of December, 1839, his betrothal was formally and publicly
+announced at Coburg. In the morning the Ducal family, with the Court
+officials, attended Divine service in the chapel of the Castle; in the
+afternoon, in the presence of the same dignitaries, with the deputies of
+the Duchies of Coburg and Gotha, the Chief Minister formally read the
+announcement of the betrothal; the while the booming of cannon from the
+fortress announced the tidings to the people of the town and the
+neighbouring country. About three hundred persons in all were present at
+the ceremony within the Castle, including bearers of congratulatory
+addresses, not only from the two duchies, but from Austria, Prussia,
+Hesse, Saxony, and other German states. From the report of an English
+gentleman of high social position, who was present on this important
+occasion, we extract, in conclusion, these fuller details:--
+
+    When the Minister (Baron de Carlowitz) had read the proclamation, the
+    Duke embraced his son, and the Duchess next imprinted a kiss upon his
+    forehead, while in every eye might be read the heartfelt wish that all
+    the parents' fondest, proudest hopes might be fully realised. More
+    than one hundred and sixty persons partook of the hospitalities of the
+    Duke's table, in the "Riesen Saal," or "Giant's Hall," and a more
+    sumptuous or splendid entertainment could not be imagined. The loud
+    and cordial cheers which the health of England's Queen called forth,
+    and which burst out with an enthusiasm which all the forms of
+    etiquette and courtly ceremony could not restrain, were almost too
+    affecting; and when the band struck up "God save the Queen," the tears
+    of joy flowed freely. I must not omit to mention a circumstance
+    characteristic of the Prince. By his order, the people were admitted
+    into the "Riesen Saal," to see the assembled company. Peasants from
+    the hills, old and young, walked about without the smallest restraint,
+    to their evident enjoyment; and their hearty exclamations--the
+    blessings they invoked on their beloved Prince and his august
+    parents--were a more eloquent and stirring panegyric than volumes
+    could express. To describe the universal attachment of all classes to
+    the Prince were impossible. I have never heard other than the most
+    enthusiastic praise--not one dissenting voice from one end of
+    Thuringia to the other. If I have remarked the personal beauty of the
+    Prince, the general reply has been, "Ah! yes, he is certainly
+    handsome, but so good; he is truly a most amiable prince, as good as
+    he is handsome." Persons attached to his suite, and the older members
+    of the Court, cannot speak of him without tears, and are quite
+    distressed at the thought of his leaving his native land.... On the
+    28th of December the Prince, accompanied by his father, quitted his
+    paternal residence for a short sojourn at Gotha; and as he bade a last
+    adieu to the stately castle of Ehrenberg, the abode of his fathers,
+    and the happy scene of his infancy, the tenderest emotions of his
+    nature for a moment almost overwhelmed him. A few days prior to his
+    departure, a ball was given him by the nobles, at which he was
+    received by twelve young ladies, attired in white, and wearing
+    fresh-gathered roses; the Philosophic Society gave him a serenade, and
+    all classes joined in affectionate expression of sympathy in their
+    young Prince's feelings on this momentous occasion.
+
+Lord Viscount Torrington and Colonel the Honourable Charles Grey, who were
+charged with the two-fold mission of investing the Prince with the
+insignia of the Order of the Garter, and escorting him and his suite to
+England, arrived at Gotha early in January, 1840, and the investiture took
+place on the 24th, with imposing ceremony. The jewels, which were of
+diamonds and of rare workmanship, were a present from the Queen. After a
+series of hospitable festivities in honour of the English envoys, Prince
+Albert set out for England on the 28th of the month.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII.
+
+THE PRINCESS VICTORIA BECOMES QUEEN REGNANT.
+
+    First Meeting of the Princess Victoria and Prince Albert--Coming of
+    Age--Festivities on the Occasion--Death of William IV., and Accession
+    of Victoria--The Queen holds her First Privy Council--Her
+    Address--Proclamation as Queen at St. James's Palace--Beautiful Traits
+    of Character displayed by the Queen--Stirring and Gorgeous
+    Scene--Delight of the People at the Queen's Accession.
+
+
+The marriage of Prince Albert with the Princess Victoria was desired, if
+not planned, by certain of their common relatives, especially the Duchess
+Dowager of Coburg and her son Prince Leopold, almost from the period when
+the cousins were in their cradles. After his betrothal, the Prince himself
+told the Queen that his mother, who died in 1831, wished earnestly that he
+should marry her. He first saw his future wife in the month of May, 1836,
+when he and his brother came to England on a visit to their aunt. He
+greatly enjoyed this visit to England, and the youthful guests were
+treated by the authorities and the inhabitants of the metropolis with the
+utmost courtesy and attention. They were sumptuously entertained at
+Windsor by the King and Queen Adelaide, and were conducted to all the
+great sights of the town by their aunt and cousin.
+
+On the 24th of May, 1837, the Princess Victoria having attained her
+eighteenth year, was declared legally of age, according to the provisions
+of a recent Act of Parliament. Amongst the first to congratulate her on
+the happy event was Prince Albert. This happy day was kept as a general
+holiday, and the night made brilliant by an illumination. It was
+celebrated with demonstrations of excessive joy at Kensington. At six
+o'clock in the morning the union-jack was hoisted on the steeple of the
+old church, as also on the green sward opposite the Palace. That edifice
+was surmounted by a splendid flag of pure white silk, on which was
+inscribed, in letters of ethereal blue, the single word "Victoria." From
+the houses of the principal inhabitants in the High Street waved a
+profusion of other flags. The gates of the Gardens were thrown open at six
+o'clock for the admission of the public; and it having got wind the
+previous evening that a serenade would be performed at seven o'clock, at
+which hour Victoria first drew breath eighteen years before, the portion
+of the Gardens next the Palace was thronged by an assemblage of
+well-dressed persons, including several ladies. Congratulatory addresses
+and innumerable presents--amongst the latter, a splendid piano from the
+King--poured in from all quarters. At night a magnificent ball in honour
+of the occasion was given at St. James's Palace.
+
+During these festivities, although it was known that the King's health was
+seriously enfeebled, no one imagined that within a month from the
+attainment of her majority the young Princess would become Queen of
+England. The anniversary of Waterloo was always a great day with King
+William. The Duke of Wellington, in consideration of the declining state
+of the King's health, proposed not to have the usual banquet at Apsley
+House; but, the day before, William, sent a message desiring that the
+banquet should take place, and wishing the host and guests a pleasant day.
+By two o'clock on the morning of the 20th he was no more.
+
+[Sidenote: ACCESSION TO THE THRONE.]
+
+Shortly after the demise of the Sovereign, three carriages, conveying the
+Primate, the Earl of Albemarle and Sir Henry Halford, the Royal physician,
+started from Windsor, and arrived at Kensington Palace shortly before five
+o'clock. The doors were thrown open before them, and in the early morning
+sunshine stood the Queen of England and her mother, prepared for the news,
+and ready to receive them. At nine o'clock, Lord Melbourne, the Premier,
+arrived at the Palace, and had an interview of half an hour with his new
+mistress. Before noon came the Lord Mayor and other members of the
+Corporation. Next to appear was the Duke of Cumberland. Miss Martineau
+thus describes the quick succession of incidents which now crowded one
+upon the other with rapid haste:--
+
+    On the meeting of the princes, peers, and other councillors, they
+    signed the oath of allegiance; and the first name on the list was that
+    of Ernest, King of Hanover. The Queen caused them all to be sworn in
+    Members of the Council, and then addressed them; after which they
+    issued orders for the Proclamation of Her Majesty. If the millions who
+    longed to know how the young Sovereign looked and felt could have
+    heard her first address, it would have gone far to satisfy them. The
+    address was, of course, prepared for her; but the manner and voice
+    were her own, and they told much. Her manner was composed, modest, and
+    dignified; her voice firm and sweet; her reading, as usual, beautiful.
+    She took the necessary oaths, and received the eager homage of the
+    thronging nobility without agitation or any awkwardness. The
+    declaration contained an affectionate reference to the deceased King;
+    an assertion of her attachment to the constitution of the country, and
+    of her intention to rule in accordance with it; a grateful allusion to
+    her mother's educational care of her; an avowal that, under
+    circumstances of such eminent responsibility as hers, she relied for
+    support and guidance in Divine Providence, and a pledge that her life
+    should be devoted to the happiness of her people. The Ministers
+    returned into her hands, and received again, the seals of their
+    respective offices; the stamps in official use were ordered to be
+    altered, as also the prayers of the Church which related to the Royal
+    Family; the Proclamation was prepared and signed by the Privy
+    Councillors, and the Queen appointed the next day, Wednesday, for the
+    ceremony. The first use of the Great Seal, under the new reign, was to
+    authenticate the official Proclamation, which was gazetted the same
+    evening. During the whole morning, carriages were driving up rapidly,
+    bringing visitors eager to offer their homage. What a day of whirl and
+    fatigue for one in a position so lonely, at such tender years. How
+    welcome must have been the night, and the quiet of her pillow,
+    whatever might be the thoughts that rested upon it. The next morning
+    she appeared "extremely pale and fatigued," and no wonder, for she had
+    passed through a day which could never be paralleled.
+
+The following is the text of her Majesty's speech delivered on this
+occasion to the Privy Council:--
+
+    The severe and afflicting loss which the nation has sustained by the
+    death of His Majesty, my beloved uncle, has devolved upon me the duty
+    of administering the Government of this empire. This awful
+    responsibility is imposed upon me so suddenly, and at so early a
+    period, that I should feel myself utterly oppressed by the burden,
+    were I not sustained by the hope that Divine Providence, which has
+    called me to this work, will give me strength for the performance of
+    it, and that I shall find, in the purity of my intentions, and in my
+    zeal for the public welfare, that support and those resources which
+    usually belong to a more mature age and longer experience. I place my
+    firm reliance upon the wisdom of Parliament, and upon the loyalty and
+    affection of my people. I esteem it also a peculiar advantage that I
+    succeed to a sovereign whose constant regard for the rights and
+    liberties of his subjects, and whose desire to promote the
+    amelioration of the laws and institutions of the country, have
+    rendered his name the object of general attachment and veneration.
+    Educated in England, under the tender and affectionate care of a most
+    affectionate mother, I have learned from my infancy to respect and
+    love the constitution of my native country. It will be my unceasing
+    study to maintain the reformed religion as by law established,
+    securing, at the same time, to all the full enjoyment of religious
+    liberty; and I shall steadily protect the rights, and promote to the
+    utmost of my power the happiness and welfare of all classes of my
+    subjects.
+
+[Sidenote: PROCLAMATION AS QUEEN.]
+
+The next day, the 21st of June, the Queen was publicly proclaimed, under
+the title of Alexandrina Victoria I.; but since that day she has disused
+the Russian name bestowed upon her by her Muscovite godfather, preferring
+to retain simply "Victoria." The Queen arrived at the Palace at ten
+o'clock, where she was received by most of the members of the Royal
+Family, the Officers of the Household, and Ministers of State. Long before
+ten all the avenues to the Palace were crowded, every balcony, window, and
+housetop being crammed with the better class of spectators. The space in
+the quadrangle in front of the window where Her Majesty was to appear, was
+crowded with ladies and gentlemen, and even the parapets above were filled
+with people.
+
+At ten o'clock the guns in the Park fired a salute, and immediately after
+the Queen made her appearance at the window of the tapestried ante-room
+adjoining the audience chamber, and was received with deafening
+cheers--cheers all the more hearty that her appearance was a surprise, for
+few had known that she was to be there present. She was dressed in deep
+mourning, with a white tippet, white cuffs, and a border of white lace
+under a small black bonnet, which was placed far back on her head,
+exhibiting her light brown hair simply parted in front. She viewed the
+proceedings with intense interest, standing during the whole rehearsal of
+the Proclamation; and although she looked pale and fatigued, she returned
+the repeated rounds of cheers with great grace and dignity. All were
+touched to very tenderness of soul by the pale face, wet with tears, calm
+and simply grave, the gravity being enhanced by the plain black dress and
+bands of brown hair, giving an aspect of Quaker-like neatness. On either
+side stood Lords Melbourne and Lansdowne, in their state dresses and blue
+ribbons, and close to her was her mother, who was dressed similarly to the
+Queen.
+
+In the court-yard were Garter King-at-Arms, with Heralds and Pursuivants
+in their robes of office, and eight Officers-of-Arms on horseback, bearing
+massive silver maces; Sergeants-at-Arms, with their maces and collars; the
+Sergeant-Trumpeter, with his mace and collar; the trumpets, drum-major and
+drums, and Knights Marshal and men. On Her Majesty showing herself at the
+Presence Chamber window, Garter Principal King-at-Arms, having taken his
+station in the court-yard under the window, accompanied by the Duke of
+Norfolk as Earl Marshal of England, read the Proclamation, containing the
+formal and official announcement of the demise of King William IV., and of
+the consequent accession of Queen Alexandrina Victoria to the rule of
+these realms. The Proclamation was brief, and to the point:--
+
+    Whereas it hath pleased Almighty God to call to His mercy our late
+    Sovereign Lord, King William IV., of blessed memory, by whose decease
+    the Imperial Crown of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland
+    is solely and rightfully come to the High and Mighty Princess
+    Alexandrina Victoria, we therefore, the Lords Spiritual and Temporal
+    of this Realm, being here assisted with these of his late Majesty's
+    Privy Council, with numbers of other principal gentlemen of quality,
+    the Lord Mayor, Aldermen, and citizens of London, do now hereby with
+    one voice and consent of tongue, proclaim that the High and Mighty
+    Princess Alexandrina Victoria is now, by the death of our late
+    Sovereign William IV., of happy memory, become our only lawful and
+    rightful Liege Lady, Alexandrina Victoria I., Queen of Great Britain
+    and Ireland, Defender of the Faith, ... to whom we acknowledge all
+    faith and constant obedience, with all humble and hearty affection,
+    beseeching God, by whom Kings and Queens do reign, to bless the Royal
+    Princess Alexandrina Victoria with long and happy years to reign. God
+    Save the Queen.
+
+[Sidenote: THE QUEEN AND THE DUKE OF SUSSEX.]
+
+At the termination of this Proclamation, the band struck up the National
+Anthem, and a signal was given for the Park and Tower guns to fire, in
+order to announce the fact of the Proclamation being made. Amid the
+booming of the guns, the air was rent with cheers by those within the
+area, which were taken up by the tens of thousands outside. The enthusiasm
+of the comparative few who could see Victoria rose to rapture when, the
+moment she was proclaimed Queen, she turned round, threw her arms round
+her mother's neck, and wept without restraint. And when her loved uncle,
+the Duke of Sussex, presented himself, the day before, to take the oath of
+allegiance, and was about to kneel in her presence to kiss her hand, she
+gracefully prevented him, kissed his cheek affectionately, and said, "Do
+not kneel, my uncle, for I am still Victoria, your niece."
+
+The feelings of gratification with which the people welcomed the accession
+of Victoria cannot be depicted in terms too strong. To most, the course of
+years seemed very short during which they had been eagerly watching the
+growth and training of the Princess. It seemed--at least, to all but the
+young--but a matter of yesterday that the newspapers had informed them of
+the birth of the Royal babe; of the Duke of Kent's illness: how he had
+come home from a walk with wet boots, and, "beguiled by the smiles of his
+infant Princess," had played with her, instead of changing his clothes,
+and thus caught the cold of which he died. And here she was now, a woman,
+and the sovereign ruler of a hundred million of souls. All they had heard
+of her was favourable. Sinister rumours and alarms there had been, but
+they had been dissipated and dispersed like the morning's mist before the
+rising god of day. Her morals were pure, her conduct spotless, and in all
+arts and accomplishments she had been carefully trained. From her earliest
+days she had been abroad in all weathers; having been often seen, when it
+was stormy, on a windy common, with a warm cloak and thick boots. She kept
+early hours, and was so exactly and proverbially punctual, that it was
+mentioned as a marvel that she once had to apologise for being half a
+minute late in an appointment. She had never been known to exceed her
+pocket-money in her personal expenditure, or to be sixpence in debt--an
+extraordinary novelty in a descendant of George III.
+
+In the first year of her reign the people were delighted to find that she
+had paid her father's debts, including considerable sums advanced by his
+warm friends, Lords Fitzwilliam and Dundas. Next she paid her mother's
+debts--debts unavoidably contracted, as she knew and acknowledged, on her
+account. She provided with royal munificence for the whole family of the
+late sovereign, and honoured them with courtesies and kindnesses, which
+almost obliterated the pain arising from their dubious position. Yet she
+lived within her income, and paid as she purchased.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX.
+
+THE MAIDEN QUEEN.
+
+    Removal to Buckingham Palace--First Levée--Dissolves
+    Parliament--Beauty of her Elocution--Splendid Reception by the City of
+    London--Settlement of the Queen's Income--Her Daily Life--Her
+    admirable Knowledge of, and Devotion to, the Business of the
+    State--Reverence for the Lord's Day.
+
+
+Greatly to the regret of the inhabitants of Kensington, the Queen, with
+her mother, took her final departure from the abode where she was born,
+and in which she had spent so many happy days, and proceeded to Buckingham
+Palace, on July 13th. The Queen, on this occasion, looked pale, and her
+countenance had a very natural, and easily accounted for, aspect of deep
+regret. Immediately afterwards she held a Court Levée. It was, of course,
+thronged by her loyal subjects who had the privilege of entrée; but there
+was no appearance of fatigue in her face, voice, or manner, and the day
+passed off with spirit and brilliancy. She seemed to have acquired (so say
+the court chroniclers of the period), if possible, increased grace and
+dignity. She wore a rich lama dress, her head glittered with diamonds, and
+her breast was covered with the insignia of the Garter and other orders. A
+pair of embroidered velvet slippers covered feet which, resting on the
+cushion, were observed and admired by all as "exquisitely small."
+
+On the 17th of July she went in state to the House of Lords to dissolve
+the Parliament, in accordance with constitutional usage and enactment on
+the demise of the Crown. After thanking both Houses for their expressions
+of condolence on the death of her uncle, and for the zeal and assiduity
+with which they had discharged their duties, especially for their efforts
+to mitigate the severity of the penal code, she concluded by saying:--
+
+    I ascend the throne with a deep sense of the responsibility which is
+    imposed upon me; but I am supported by the consciousness of my own
+    right intentions, and by my dependence upon the protection of Almighty
+    God. It will be my care to strengthen our institutions, civil and
+    ecclesiastical, by discreet improvement wherever improvement is
+    required, and to do all in my power to compose and allay animosity and
+    discord. Acting upon these principles, I shall, upon all occasions,
+    look with confidence to the wisdom of Parliament and the affections of
+    my people, which form the true support of the dignity of the Crown,
+    and ensure the stability of the Constitution.
+
+The admirable manner in which the speech was read--her singularly musical
+voice being heard, without the slightest appearance of effort, in every
+corner of the House of Lords--was the subject of the admiration of all who
+heard it. It was, indeed, known that she was a fine singer, and frequently
+entertained her mother's guests by singing to them, her mother
+accompanying her on the piano; nevertheless, the lucidity of her tones,
+and the entire absence of any discomposure to disturb them, surprised
+every one, and no one more so than her mother.
+
+[Sidenote: STATE VISIT TO THE CITY.]
+
+The Queen went in great state to the City on Lord Mayor's Day, November 9.
+This royal entry was one of the greatest sights which had ever been beheld
+in the City. The Queen, looking remarkably well, magnificently attired in
+pink satin shot with silver, was greeted with deafening cheers from a
+crowd far denser than any she had ever seen, along her whole route from
+Marlborough House (her temporary residence until Buckingham Palace was
+completed for her occupation) to the Guildhall. The houses along the
+thoroughfares by which the cavalcade passed were hung with bright-coloured
+cloths, with green boughs, and with what flowers the earth could afford at
+the late season of the year. Flags and heraldic banners darkened the dim
+November light across the Strand, Fleet Street, and Cheapside; and every
+pedestal that could be improvised supported a bust of Queen Victoria. At
+Temple Bar the Lord Mayor and Aldermen, mounted on artillery horses from
+Woolwich, each of the steeds being held by the head by the soldier who was
+accustomed to bestride him, awaited their distinguished guest. The Lord
+Mayor, dismounting and taking the City Sword in his hand, delivered the
+keys, which were graciously returned, while more vociferous cheers than
+ever rent the air. On which, the Lord Mayor, re-mounting and holding the
+City Sword aloft, rode before Her Majesty through the City, the cortége of
+mounted Aldermen following her carriage. The open space before St. Paul's
+was occupied by hustings, crowded by the Liverymen of the City Companies
+and the Christ's Hospital boys. One of these, in conformity with an old
+usage, having presented an address to the Queen, and the whole of the boys
+having sung "God save the Queen," the procession went on its way. At the
+Guildhall, which, with all its adjacent chambers, was sumptuously fitted
+up, a loyal address was read by the Recorder, and suitably acknowledged.
+After this came a sumptuous banquet, from which Her Majesty retired, to
+see on her way back the whole line of the route brilliantly illuminated.
+
+The first message which the Queen sent to Parliament when it re-assembled,
+was a truly characteristic one: it asked for a suitable provision for her
+royal mother. This provision was loyally made, and in the same short
+winter session her own civil list was settled. William IV. had enjoyed a
+civil list amounting to £510,000, while, from the accession of George III.
+to the death of his eldest son, it had been fixed at £1,030,000. Her
+Majesty's civil list was fixed at £385,000 per annum, and her privy purse,
+being the only sum over which she had complete personal control, and from
+which her private charities had to be disbursed, was fixed at £60,000. Out
+of the £385,000 the calculation, based by order of Parliament upon the
+accounts of the late reign, was that £131,260 would go for salaries of the
+Household, from the Master of the Horse and Mistress of the Robes, down to
+the humblest scullion and stable-helper; and £172,500 in tradesmen's
+bills.
+
+During the early days of her maiden reign, the Queen rose at eight,
+occupied a remarkably short time in dressing, and then discharged such
+routine business as signing despatches until the breakfast hour, which was
+invariably a quarter before ten. At that hour, she without fail sent one
+of her attendants to _invite_ the Duchess of Kent to breakfast. From the
+day of her ascending the throne, to remove the slightest ground for
+suspicion as to any undue influence, the strictest etiquette was preserved
+between mother and daughter; the former never approaching the latter
+unless specially summoned, and carefully abstaining from conversing about
+the business of the State. Twelve o'clock was the time appointed for
+conferences with her Ministers. After the usual complimentary salutation,
+she at once proceeded to the business of the day. If a document were
+handed to her, she read it without comment, and no remark passed her own
+lips or those of the Ministers present, until its perusal was concluded.
+After retiring from the Council-room, the interval was passed until dinner
+in riding or walking. At dinner, the first Lord-in-waiting took the head
+of the table; opposite to him, the chief Equerry-in-waiting. Her Majesty's
+chair was half way down on the right, the various guests being seated
+according to their ranks. Next to Her Majesty, on the right hand, was the
+nobleman of highest degree; next to him, the Duchess of Kent, and so on.
+On Her Majesty's left, the same rule was observed, the Baroness Lehzen,
+who acted as Secretary to the Queen, being always near her. The Queen left
+the table early for the drawing-room, where her musical tastes were
+regaled almost invariably, and her own proficiency very frequently
+displayed.
+
+[Sidenote: REVERENCE FOR SUNDAY.]
+
+The following incident, which was made public during the first year of the
+Queen's reign, made a very pleasing impression upon the well-conditioned
+portion of the public. A certain noble Minister arrived at Windsor at a
+late hour on Saturday night. On being introduced, he said, "I have brought
+down for your Majesty's inspection some documents of great importance;
+but, as I shall be obliged to trouble you to examine them in detail, I
+will not encroach on the time of your Majesty to-night, but will request
+your attention to-morrow morning." "To-morrow morning?" repeated the
+Queen; "to-morrow is Sunday, my lord." "True, your Majesty, but business
+of the State will not admit of delay." "I am aware of that," replied the
+Queen, "and, as your lordship could not have arrived earlier at the Palace
+to-night, I will, if those papers are of such pressing importance, attend
+to their contents after church to-morrow morning." So to church went the
+Queen and the Court, and to church went the noble lord; when, much to his
+surprise, the discourse was on the duties and obligations of the Christian
+Sabbath. "How did your lordship like the sermon?" asked the Queen. "Very
+much indeed, your Majesty," replied the nobleman. "Well, then," retorted
+Her Majesty, "I will not conceal from you that, last night, I sent the
+clergyman the text from which he preached. I hope we shall all be improved
+by the sermon." The Sunday passed without a single word being said
+relative to the State papers, and at night, when Her Majesty was about to
+withdraw--"To-morrow morning, my lord, at any hour you please," said the
+Queen, turning to the nobleman--"as early as seven, my lord, if you like,
+we will look into the papers." The nobleman said that he could not think
+of intruding on Her Majesty at so early an hour; he thought nine o'clock
+would be quite soon enough. "No, no, my lord," said the Queen; "as the
+papers are of importance, I wish them to be attended to very early.
+However, if you wish it to be nine, be it so." And accordingly, the next
+morning at nine, Her Majesty was seated ready to receive the nobleman and
+his papers.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X.
+
+THE QUEEN CROWNED.
+
+    Novel Features in the Coronation--Its Cost--Large Amount of Money
+    Circulated--Splendour of the Procession--Enormous Crowds--The Scene
+    within the Abbey--Arrival of the Queen--The Regalia and Sacred
+    Vessels--Costume of the Queen--Astonishment of the Turkish Ambassador
+    at the Scene--The Coronation Ceremony--The Queen's Oath--The
+    Anointing--The Crown placed on her Head--The Homage--An Aged Peer--The
+    Queen's Crown--The Illuminations and general Festivities--Fair in Hyde
+    Park--The Duke of Wellington and Marshal Soult at the Guildhall.
+
+
+The great event of the year 1838 was the Coronation, which took place on
+the 28th of June. It was conducted after the abridged model of that of the
+Queen's immediate predecessor. The Coronation of George IV. had cost
+£243,000; that of William IV., £50,000. The charges on the occasion of the
+crowning of Queen Victoria amounted to about £70,000. This slight excess
+over the cost of the last Sovereign's solemn investiture with regal power
+was explained by the Chancellor of the Exchequer as having been in no
+sense occasioned by any part of the ceremonial peculiarly connected with
+the Sovereign, but it had been incurred with a view of enabling the great
+mass of the people to participate in this national festivity. The great
+novelty on the occasion was the omission of the walking procession of all
+the estates of the realm, and the banquet in Westminster Hall, with the
+feudal services attendant thereon. Many of the upper classes grumbled not
+a little at these omissions; but the general public were more than
+proportionately gratified. For in lieu of the disused ceremonies, a public
+procession through the streets was substituted. This enabled all to
+witness the splendid pageant, and induced a very large private expenditure
+and circulation of money. It was estimated that no less than £200,000 were
+paid for the use of windows and other positions of vantage in the line of
+the procession. The price of single seats ranged from five shillings to
+ten guineas; and the Duke of Buckingham, in his "Courts and Cabinets of
+William IV. and Victoria," alleges that single windows in Pall Mall and
+St. James's Street produced no less than £200. Persons of distinction
+behaved with a becoming liberality and splendour. Marshal Soult, the old
+opponent of Wellington, who specially represented on the occasion the
+Court of the Tuileries, and who was received by the crowds with great
+enthusiasm, appeared in a splendid state carriage that had been used by
+the Prince of Condé. The Russian Ambassador purchased for £1,600 a similar
+chariot, which had already done the same duty for the Duke of Devonshire,
+at St. Petersburg, on a like occasion. Another diplomat gave £250 for the
+loan for the day of a vehicle befitting his rank; while many more had to
+content themselves with carriages whose normal function it was to minister
+to the state of the civic magnates, and which were hastily repainted and
+decorated for the auspicious occasion.
+
+The day was one of the brightest on which the Queen, with her proverbial
+good fortune in this respect, has ever appeared amongst her subjects. At
+early morn, the first rays of the blazing Midsummer sun slanted down
+through the windows of Westminster Abbey upon the jewels of whole rows of
+peeresses, and the illuminations which turned night into day remained in
+full magnificence until the dawn of the succeeding morning. At dawn, a
+salvo of artillery from the Tower caused all the population to be astir,
+and the population was on this day increased by the importation of four
+hundred thousand visitors. The behaviour of the enormous multitude which
+first lined the streets and then spread itself over the town, was beyond
+all praise. Courtesy and mutual forbearance were conspicuous, and no
+accident or offence occurred to mar the pleasing impressions of the
+ceremonial.
+
+[Sidenote: ORDER OF THE PROCESSION.]
+
+The route of the procession was as follows:--From Buckingham Palace, up
+Constitution Hill, along Piccadilly, St. James's Street, Pall Mall,
+Cockspur Street, Charing Cross, Whitehall, and Parliament Street, to the
+great west door of Westminster Abbey. The most novel feature of the
+procession was the carriages of the Foreign Ambassadors, to which we have
+already alluded, with their jägers in gorgeous or grotesque uniforms.
+These came in the order in which they had arrived on their special
+missions to this country; the carriages of the regular resident
+Ambassadors came in their ordinary order of precedence. Next followed the
+members of the Royal Family, the Duchess of Kent preceding the carriages
+of the surviving sons of George III. To the Queen's Barge Master, with
+forty-eight watermen, succeeded twelve of the Royal carriages, containing
+the Ladies and Gentlemen of the Household. Next came mounted, three and
+three, the high functionaries of the Army. And after Royal huntsmen,
+yeomen, prickers, marshalmen, foresters, and a host of other minor
+functionaries--the whole of the mounted Household Troops being here and
+there interspersed at intervals in the cavalcade--came the grand state
+coach, containing Her Majesty the Queen, with the Duchess of Sutherland,
+Mistress of the Robes. On either side of the carriage rode Lord
+Combermere, Gold Stick in Waiting, and the Earl of Ilchester, Captain of
+the Yeomen of the Guard. The Earl of Albemarle, as Master of the Horse,
+and the Duke of Buccleuch, as Captain-General of the Royal Scottish
+Archers, rode behind. A squadron of Life Guards brought up the rear.
+
+Meanwhile, within the Abbey, a painful sleepiness had oppressed those who
+had sat so many hours in cramped positions; many of them in galleries
+perched up high under the roofs of the aisles. Suddenly, a burst of music,
+rushing among the arches and ringing from the roof, aroused and entranced
+all, who peered eagerly down upon the procession of small figures; the
+central one looking the slightest and most fragile of all. At half-past
+eleven, the Queen reached the door of the Abbey, where she was received by
+the great officers of State, the noblemen bearing the Regalia, and the
+bishops carrying Patina, Chalice, and Bible. Having retired to her
+Robing-room, the procession formed and proceeded towards the altar, which
+was laden with magnificent gold plate, and beside which stood St. Edward's
+Chair. Besides the elements which are common to all great English regal
+processions, and which it is, therefore, not requisite to recapitulate,
+the Regalia, which only appear on such occasions, were thus
+distributed:--St. Edward's Staff, the Golden Spurs, the Sceptre with the
+Cross, the Curtana, and two Swords of Investiture, were borne respectively
+by the Duke of Roxburgh, Lord Byron, Duke of Cleveland, Duke of
+Devonshire, Marquis of Westminster, and Duke of Sutherland. The coronets
+of the princes of the blood were borne by noblemen; their trains by
+knights or peers' sons. Next came the Earl Marshal, Duke of Norfolk, with
+his staff, Lord Melbourne with the Sword of State, and the Duke of
+Wellington, with his staff, as Lord High Constable; the Dukes of Richmond,
+Hamilton, and Somerset bore the Sceptre and Dove, St. Edward's Crown, and
+the Orb; the Bishops of Bangor, Winchester, and London carried the Patina,
+Chalice, and Bible. The Queen, who was supported on one side by the Bishop
+of Bath and Wells, on the other by the Bishop of Durham, wore a royal robe
+of crimson velvet, furred with ermine and broidered with gold lace. She
+wore the collars of her orders, and on her head a circlet of gold. Eight
+peers' daughters bore her train, most, if not all of them, old friends of
+her happy childish tours to the mansions of the aristocracy, and
+distinguished by their personal attractions. About fifty ladies of rank,
+occupying various positions in the household, succeeded, and the
+procession was concluded by Officers of State and Yeomen of the Guard.
+
+[Sidenote: THE CORONATION.]
+
+The chief and most picturesque incidents in the Coronation ceremony must
+be briefly narrated. The Queen looked extremely well, and "had a very
+animated countenance;" but perhaps the splendid attire of some of the
+foreign ambassadors attracted more attention than even the Sovereign to
+whose court they were accredited. The costume of the Prince Esterhazy was
+by far the most gorgeous; his dress, even to his boot-heels, sparkled with
+diamonds. The Turkish Ambassador seemed specially bewildered at the
+general splendour of the scene: for some moments he stopped in
+astonishment, and had to be courteously admonished to move to his allotted
+place.
+
+As the Queen advanced slowly to the centre of the choir, she was received
+with hearty plaudits, and the musicians sang the anthem, "I was glad." At
+its close, the boys of Westminster School, privileged of old to occupy a
+special gallery, chanted "Vivat Victoria Regina." On this the Queen moved
+to a chair, midway between the Chair of Homage and the altar; and there,
+after a few moments' private devotion, kneeling on a fald-stool, she sat
+down, and the ceremony proper began. First came the "recognition." The
+Archbishop of Canterbury, accompanied by some half-dozen of the greatest
+civil dignitaries, advanced and said, "Sirs, I here present unto you Queen
+Victoria, the undoubted Queen of this realm; wherefore, all you who have
+come this day to do your homage, are you willing to do the same?" On this,
+all Her Majesty's subjects present shouted, "God Save Queen Victoria!" the
+Archbishop turning in succession to the north, south, and west sides of
+the Abbey, and the Queen doing the same. The bishops who bore them, then
+placed the Patina, Chalice, and Bible on the altar; the Queen, kneeling,
+made her first offering, a pall, or altar-cloth, of gold. The Archbishop
+having offered a prayer, the Regalia were laid on the altar; the Litany
+and Communion services were read, and a brief sermon preached, by various
+prelates. The preacher was the Bishop of London, and his text was from the
+Second Book of Chronicles, chapter xxxiv., verse 31--"And the king stood
+in his place, and made a covenant before the Lord, to walk after the Lord,
+and to keep his commandments, and his testimonies, and his statutes, with
+all his heart, and with all his soul, to perform the words of the covenant
+which are written in this book."
+
+After the sermon, the Queen swore--the Archbishop of Canterbury putting
+the oath--that she would maintain the law and the established religion.
+Then Her Majesty--the Sword of State being carried before her--went to the
+altar, and laying her right hand upon the Gospel, said, kneeling, "The
+things which I have here-before promised, I will perform and keep. So help
+me, God!" Having kissed the book, and signed a transcript of the oath
+presented to her by the Archbishop, she knelt upon her fald-stool, while
+the choir sang, "Veni, Creator, Dominus."
+
+[Sidenote: THE HOMAGE OF THE PEERS.]
+
+Now, sitting in King Edward's Chair, four Knights of the Garter holding
+the while over her head a canopy of cloth of gold, her head and hands were
+anointed by the Archbishop of Canterbury; after which he said his prayer,
+or blessing, over her. In quick succession followed the delivery of the
+Spurs, Sword of State, &c. The Dean of Westminster, having taken the crown
+from the altar, handed it to the Archbishop, who reverently placed it on
+the Queen's head. This was no sooner done, than there arose from every
+part of the edifice a tremendous shout--"God save the Queen!" accompanied
+with lusty cheers and the waving of hats and handkerchiefs. At the same
+moment, the Peers and Peeresses put on their coronets, the Bishops their
+caps, and the Kings of Arms their crowns; the trumpets sounded, the drums
+were beat, and volleys fired from the Tower and Park guns. After the
+Benediction and Te Deum, the Queen was "enthroned," or "lifted," as the
+formulary has it, from the chair in which she had first sat into the Chair
+of Homage, where she delivered the sceptre, &c., to noblemen, while she
+received fealty of her more distinguished subjects. The Archbishop first
+knelt and did homage for himself and all the spiritual peers; next came
+the Princes of the blood, who merely touched the crown, kissed her left
+cheek, swore the oath of homage, and retired without kneeling; then the
+Peers in succession came--seventeen dukes, twenty-two marquises,
+ninety-four earls, twenty viscounts, and ninety-two barons. Each Peer
+knelt bareheaded, and kissed Her Majesty's hand. Lord Rolle, who was
+upwards of eighty, stumbled and fell in going up the steps; the Queen at
+once stepped forward, and held out her hand to assist him. While the Peers
+were doing homage, the Earl of Surrey, Treasurer of the Household, threw
+silver coronation medals about the choir and lower galleries; and when the
+homage was completed the Members of the House of Commons, who occupied a
+special gallery, indicated their loyalty by giving nine lusty cheers. It
+was almost a quarter to four when the procession came back along the nave.
+The return cavalcade along the streets was even more attractive than that
+of the morning, for the royal and noble personages now wore their
+coronets, and the Queen her crown. The crown was especially admired. That
+which had been made for George IV. weighed upwards of seven pounds, and as
+it was considered too heavy for the Queen, a new one was constructed by
+Messrs. Rundell and Bridge, of less than half the weight. It was formed of
+hoops of silver, covered with precious stones, over a cap of rich blue
+velvet, surmounted with a ball enriched by diamonds. Amongst its other
+gems was a large heart-shaped ruby, which had been worn by the Black
+Prince; this was set in front.
+
+[Sidenote: CORONATION FESTIVITIES.]
+
+In the evening the Queen entertained a hundred guests to dinner at
+Buckingham Palace, and at a late hour witnessed from the roof the
+fireworks in the Green Park. At Apsley House, the Duke of Wellington gave
+a ball, to which two thousand guests were invited. All the Cabinet
+Ministers gave state dinners. A fair was held in Hyde Park on the day of
+the coronation--Thursday--and until the end of the week. The area allotted
+comprised nearly one-third of the Park. On Friday, the Queen visited the
+fair, which was studded with theatres, refreshment booths, and stalls for
+the sale of fancy articles. The illuminations and fireworks gave great
+satisfaction, as did the fact that the whole of the theatres were opened
+gratuitously at the Queen's express desire. Among other festivities, at
+home and abroad, which succeeded and were held in honour of the coronation
+of Victoria, may be mentioned a grand review by Her Majesty in Hyde Park;
+a magnificent banquet at the Guildhall, at which the old Waterloo
+antagonists, Wellington and Soult, were toasted in combination; the
+feasting of 13,000 persons on one spot at Cambridge; the laying of the
+first stone of the St. George's Hall, at Liverpool, and at Leghorn of an
+English Protestant Church; and a great public dinner, in Paris, presided
+over by Sir Sidney Smith, the hero of St. Jean d'Acre.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI.
+
+THE BEDCHAMBER PLOT.
+
+    Resignation of Lord Melbourne's Cabinet--Sir Robert Peel sent
+    for--Fails to Form a Cabinet--His Explanation--The Queen Refuses to
+    Dismiss her Ladies of the Bedchamber--Supported by her late
+    Ministers--Sir Robert Peel's Objections--The Queen will not give
+    way--The Whigs recalled to Power--Public Opinion on the Dispute--The
+    Whig Ministers blamed, but the Queen exculpated.
+
+
+In April, 1839, Lord Melbourne's administration, which had been rapidly
+losing its once great popularity, obtained only the small and nominal
+majority of five, in a very important matter connected with the government
+of Jamaica. The Ministers accordingly tendered their resignations early in
+May, and Her Majesty was graciously pleased to accept them. As usual under
+such circumstances, the Parliament was prorogued for a few days. After the
+lapse of a week, the Houses re-assembled, and Lord John Russell, who had
+been the Whig leader of the House, immediately rose and said that since he
+had last addressed them, Sir Robert Peel had received authority from Her
+Majesty to form a new Administration, and that the attempt of the Right
+Honourable Baronet having failed, Her Majesty had been graciously pleased
+to permit that gentleman to state the circumstances which had led to that
+failure.
+
+On her accession, the Queen had left the selection of the Ladies of the
+Household entirely to her uncle Sussex, and Lord Melbourne--the one of
+whom had been a Whig all his life, and the other, though but a
+comparatively recent convert, was the head of the Whig party. They had
+somewhat indiscreetly selected at least all the important female members
+of the Household, those to whom a young girl would be likely to look up
+confidingly for information and guidance, from the ranks of the Whig
+aristocracy. On Tuesday, the 29th of May, the resignations of the
+Melbourne Cabinet were announced to Parliament. The next day, at two
+o'clock, in answer to her summons, Sir Robert Peel waited upon the Queen.
+She had first sent for the Duke of Wellington, but he recommended his
+former lieutenant and future leader as premier. The Queen, with
+characteristic truthfulness, which was none the less admirable that it was
+too girlishly outspoken to be judicious, or at all in accordance with the
+spirit of the constitution, at once greeted Sir Robert with an avowal that
+she was much grieved to part with her late Ministers, whose conduct she
+entirely approved. This was rather an awkward beginning. Nevertheless, he
+proceeded with the formation of his Cabinet, and the next day submitted a
+list of names to the Queen, including the Duke of Wellington, Lords
+Lyndhurst, Aberdeen, Ellenborough, Stanley, Sir James Graham, and Mr.
+Goulburn. As to the Household, he had hardly thought about it, and indeed
+he said he did not know who constituted the female part of it. He took the
+Red Book to learn who they were, and was at once struck with the
+completeness of the arrangements for surrounding the Queen with the
+nearest relations of the Whig Ministers. For example, he afterwards put
+this point most strongly to the House:--
+
+    Sir, let me take that particular question on which my difficulty would
+    arise. Who can conceal from himself that my difficulties were not
+    Canada; that my difficulties were not Jamaica; that my difficulties
+    were Ireland? (ironical cheers). I admit it freely, and thank you for
+    the confirmation of my argument which these cheers afford. And what is
+    the fact? I, undertaking to be a Minister of the Crown, and wishing to
+    carry on public affairs through the intervention of the present House
+    of Commons, in order that I might exempt the country from the
+    agitation, and, possibly, the peril of a dissolution--I, upon that
+    very question in a minority of upwards of twenty members. A majority
+    of twenty-two had decided in favour of the policy of the Irish
+    Government [that is, of the Irish policy of Lord Melbourne]. The chief
+    members of the Irish Government, whose policy was so approved of, were
+    the Marquis of Normanby, and the noble lord opposite, the member for
+    Yorkshire [Lord Morpeth, afterwards the Earl of Carlisle]. By whom are
+    the chief offices in the Household at this moment held? By the sister
+    of Lord Morpeth [the Duchess of Sutherland], and the wife of the
+    Marquis of Normanby. But the question is--Would it be considered by
+    the public that a Minister had the confidence of the Crown, when the
+    relatives of his immediate political opponents held the highest
+    offices about the person of the Sovereign? My impression decidedly was
+    that I should not appear to the country to be in possession of that
+    confidence; and that impression I could not overcome; and upon that
+    impression I resolved to act. Who were my political opponents? Why, of
+    the two I have named, one, the Marquis of Normanby, was publicly
+    stated to be a candidate for the very same office which it was
+    proposed I should fill--namely, the office of Prime Minister. The
+    other noble lord has been designated as the leader of this House; and
+    I know not why his talents might not justify his appointment, in case
+    of the retirement of his predecessor. Is it possible--I ask you to go
+    back to other times; take Pitt, or Fox, or any other Minister of this
+    proud country, and answer for yourselves this question--is it fitting
+    that one man shall be the Minister, responsible for the most arduous
+    charge that can fall to the lot of man, and that the wife of the
+    other--that other his most formidable political enemy--shall, with his
+    express consent, hold office in immediate attendance on the
+    Sovereign? Oh no! I felt it was impossible--I could not consent to
+    this. Yes, feelings more powerful than reasoning on those precedents
+    told me that it was not for my own honour or the public interests that
+    I should consent to be Minister of England. The public interests may
+    suffer nothing by my abandonment of that high trust; the public
+    interests may suffer nothing by my eternal exclusion from power; but
+    the public interests would suffer, and I should be abandoning my duty
+    to myself, my country, and, above all, to the Queen my sovereign, if I
+    were to consent to hold power on conditions which I felt to be--which
+    I had the strongest conviction were--incompatible with the authority
+    and with the duty of a Prime Minister.
+
+[Sidenote: THE QUEEN AND SIR ROBERT PEEL.]
+
+Sir Robert had informed Her Majesty that he did not propose any change in
+the offices in question below the grade of Ladies of the Bedchamber. He
+took it for granted that the ladies who held higher offices would save him
+any appearance of want of courtesy by voluntarily resigning. Ere this,
+however, had been stated, the Queen having expressed a desire that her own
+and her mother's old friend, Lord Liverpool (who, it may be remarked, was
+of the Tory party), should be appointed to some office, Sir Robert at once
+requested the Queen's permission to offer him the office of Lord Steward,
+or any other which he might select. The only other names which he
+submitted to her were those of Lords Ashley (now Shaftesbury), and Sydney.
+So far all was well. But when he went on to say that he was most ready to
+apply a similar principle to, and consult Her Majesty's wishes in, the
+selection of her ladies, the Queen remarked that she should reserve all
+these appointments, and indeed did not intend to make any present change.
+In a subsequent interview with the Duke of Wellington, the Queen
+reiterated the same desire and intention. Meanwhile, after her interviews
+with Peel and Wellington, Her Majesty sent for Lord John Russell, and put
+the direct question to him, Was she right in her determination? He at once
+replied that she was right; on which she naïvely asked him to support her
+now, as she had supported the Cabinet of which he had been a member. Lord
+John having consulted Lord Melbourne, they called their ex-colleagues
+together, and advised the Queen to send the following note to Sir Robert
+Peel, which she did:--
+
+    Buckingham Palace, May 10, 1839.
+
+    The Queen, having considered the proposal made to her yesterday by Sir
+    Robert Peel, to remove the Ladies of her Bedchamber, cannot consent to
+    adopt a course which she conceives to be contrary to usage and
+    repugnant to her feelings.
+
+On receipt of this, Sir Robert Peel, acting in perfect concert with the
+Duke of Wellington, communicated with Her Majesty in a remarkably
+courteous letter, of which this was the concluding and decisive
+paragraph:--
+
+    Having had the opportunity, through your Majesty's gracious
+    consideration, of reflecting upon this point, he humbly submits to
+    your Majesty that he is reluctantly compelled, by a sense of public
+    duty and of the interest of your Majesty's service, to adhere to the
+    opinion which he ventured to express to your Majesty. He trusts he may
+    be permitted, at the same time, to express to your Majesty his
+    grateful acknowledgments for the distinction which your Majesty
+    conferred upon him, by requiring his advice and assistance in the
+    attempt to form an Administration, and his earnest prayers that
+    whatever arrangements your Majesty may be enabled to make for that
+    purpose, may be most conducive to your Majesty's personal comfort and
+    happiness, and to the promotion of the public welfare.
+
+[Sidenote: WELLINGTON AND LORD MELBOURNE.]
+
+It was generally believed at the time, as Sir Archibald Alison himself
+confesses, that Peel did not regret this royal rebuff; for "he was by no
+means sanguine," says the Tory historiographer, "as to the success of his
+mission, nor annoyed at the failure of the attempt to fulfil it." The
+_pro_ and _con_ were put with equal terseness and skill by Lord Melbourne
+and the Duke of Wellington. The words of the latter were:--"It is
+essential that the Minister should possess the entire confidence of Her
+Majesty, and with that view should exercise the usual control permitted to
+the Minister by the Sovereign in the construction of the Household. There
+is the greatest possible difference between the _Household of the Queen
+Consort and the Household of the Queen Regnant_--that of the former, who
+is not a political personage, being comparatively of little importance."
+
+Lord Melbourne, on the other hand, thus justified the advice which his
+Royal Mistress had received from him and adopted:--"I frankly declare that
+I resume office unequivocally and solely for this reason, that I will not
+abandon my Sovereign in a situation of difficulty and distress, and
+especially when a demand is made upon Her Majesty with which, I think, she
+ought not to comply--a demand inconsistent with her personal honour, and
+which, if acquiesced in, would render her reign liable to all the changes
+and variations of political parties, and render her domestic life one
+constant scene of unhappiness and discomfort."
+
+The public at large, even those who thought her _action_ wrong, accorded
+to the Queen sympathy rather than blame. It was well known that she had
+been dexterously surrounded by the wives and sisters and daughters of the
+great Whigs, and that on these ladies all her ardent and girlish
+affections were bestowed. This made the people all the more angry that
+the male heads of the Whig houses now gave her unconstitutional advice.
+Not only her youth and inexperience, but the very warmth of the affection
+which she had displayed, and, above all, the fact that she was the chief
+sufferer on the occasion, all pleaded for her. Indeed, it may be said that
+the quickly-forgotten "Bedchamber Plot" rather endeared the Sovereign to
+her subjects than otherwise. Both of her uncles who preceded her on the
+throne had been exceedingly capricious and disloyal to their ministers.
+Under these reigns there was a constant sense, in the breasts of ministers
+and in the breasts of the people, of the precariousness of the existence
+of even the most popular cabinets. It certainly cannot be said that in the
+early summer of 1839 Lord Melbourne's cabinet was popular. Nevertheless,
+though the ministers were blamed, the people were charmed by the Queen's
+ingenuousness, bravery, and steadiness of attachment. It is but just to
+state that on every future occasion of the change of an Administration,
+the Queen has, without the slightest demur, conceded the point, the
+consideration of which we now dismiss. And with the transparent candour of
+her nature, Her Majesty has caused it to be made known that the Prince
+Consort had much to do with producing this result.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII.
+
+COURTSHIP AND BETROTHAL.
+
+    Desire of the Coburg Relatives for a Marriage between Victoria and
+    Albert--Favourable Impressions mutually made by Victoria and
+    Albert--Prince Albert's Letter on the Queen's Accession--Opposition of
+    King William IV. to the Marriage--Correspondence between the
+    Cousins--King Leopold urges on the Marriage--The Queen's Reluctance to
+    become Betrothed--Her subsequent Regret at this--The Prince craves a
+    definite Determination--His Second Visit to England--Betrothed at
+    last--Returns to Germany to say Farewell.
+
+
+We have already seen that the marriage of Prince Albert with his cousin
+was strongly desired by their common relatives from a very early period of
+their lives. It was the "ardent wish" of their grandmother, and she freely
+communicated that wish to her son and daughter, Prince Leopold and the
+Duchess of Kent. There are strong indications that the astute King Leopold
+never lost sight of this end from the date of his mother's death in 1831.
+Soon after the visit of the brothers to their "aunt Kent" in 1836, the
+rumour began to prevail in England that Prince Albert was the _fiancé_ of
+the future Queen. The idea, however, was premature. So we know on the
+Queen's authority, who has caused it to be stated that "nothing was then
+settled."
+
+In the letters which the Prince sent to his father and others, during his
+stay at Brussels and elsewhere, immediately after his first visit to
+England, he made frequent reference to the general impressions thence
+derived, and especially to his young cousin. Of such allusions, this is a
+fair specimen:--"A few days ago I received a letter from aunt Kent,
+enclosing one from our cousin. She told me I was to communicate its
+contents to you, so I send it on with a translation of the English. The
+day before yesterday I received a second and yet kinder letter from my
+cousin, in which she thanks me for my good wishes on her birth-day. You
+may easily imagine that both these letters gave me great pleasure." And
+when the news of the death of King William and the accession of Victoria
+arrived, he informed his father, on the authority of his uncle Leopold,
+that the new reign had commenced most successfully (this, perhaps, in
+allusion to the anticipated attempt at a _coup d'état_ by the Duke of
+Cumberland), that his cousin Victoria had shown astonishing
+self-possession, although English parties were violently excited, and that
+the Duchess of Kent had found strenuous support against "violent attacks
+in the newspapers." This last statement we have, however, good reasons for
+saying had reached the young Prince in a somewhat exaggerated form; we
+mean, so far as the "violence" of the attacks was concerned.
+
+To the Queen herself the Prince wrote a letter, consolatory in her
+bereavement, and congratulatory on her accession. This was the first
+letter which he sent her written in English. He prayed Heaven to assist
+her now that she was "Queen of the mightiest land in Europe," with the
+happiness of millions in her hand, and asked her "to think sometimes of
+her cousins in Bonn [where they were then pursuing their University
+studies], and to continue that kindness you favoured them with till now."
+
+[Sidenote: RUMOURS ABOUT MARRIAGE.]
+
+On the accession of the Queen, the rumour of her marriage with Prince
+Albert became ten times more prevalent. The judicious King Leopold thought
+it wise, for a time at least, to discourage this expectation, and to
+withdraw the attention of the English from the Prince. Hence it was that
+he counselled those journeys into Austria, South Germany, Switzerland, and
+Italy, in which we have already traced the steps of the Prince. This was
+chiefly dictated by the distracted state of parties in England, which the
+King of the Belgians thought it better to permit time to allay ere the
+matrimonial project was brought specifically forward. "United as all
+parties are," wrote Prince Albert to his father, from the inspiration of
+his uncle, "in high praise of the young Queen, the more do they seem to
+manoeuvre and intrigue with and against each other. On every side there is
+nothing but a network of cabals and intrigues, and parties are arrayed
+against each other in a most inexplicable manner."
+
+Whilst making his "grand tour," the Prince kept up an occasional
+correspondence with his cousin. From Switzerland he sent her an album of
+the places which he visited, from the top of the Rigi a dried Alpine rose,
+and from Ferney an autographic scrap of Voltaire, which he received from
+an old servant of the great philosopher.
+
+By the early part of 1839, the tour was concluded, and we find the Prince
+once more at Brussels with his uncle. Leopold now spoke to him more fully
+and definitely than he had hitherto done about his prospects in life and
+the state of his affections. It very clearly appears that the marriage
+with the Queen had been gradually becoming more and more an understood
+thing. It appears equally clear that the Queen was averse, as yet, to
+committing herself to a distinct and final engagement. She was willing to
+marry, but wished to defer the contraction of the union. She thought both
+herself and her cousin too young; and the interests of her people, rather
+than any personal backwardness, influenced her wish that both she and her
+husband should be older ere they became man and wife. She regretted
+afterwards this delay, and felt that the harassments of the Bedchamber
+Plot and other still more painful incidents which we have thought it
+preferable not to rake up and reproduce in these pages, would have been
+borne by her with more equanimity had she had the natural protection of a
+husband six months or a year ere the date of her marriage. It was probably
+this postponement of any definite settlement that occasioned Prince
+Albert's absence from England at the Coronation, in June, 1838. His father
+was invited, and received at the hands of his niece the honour of the
+Order of the Garter. The Dowager Duchess of Gotha was very proud of this,
+and proud also to recollect that her son-in-law possessed the noblest
+knightly order of Christendom, which her own father of Hesse-Cassel, and
+her father-in-law of Gotha, had also worn and treasured.
+
+[Sidenote: OBJECTIONS TO THE MARRIAGE.]
+
+In more than one quarter the marriage, which all members of the Coburg
+family felt to be so eligible, and in which their feelings were so much
+involved, met with a considerable amount of opposition. By a curious
+coincidence, a Prince of Orange had been the suitor favoured by George IV.
+for the hand of his daughter; but she selected the man of her own
+choice--Leopold, a Coburg Prince. And a Prince of Orange (nephew of the
+rejected aspirant to the hand of the Princess Charlotte) was the man
+thought by William IV., as long as he lived, to be the best future husband
+of his niece and successor; and his niece, too, selected, like her cousin
+Charlotte, as the man of her choice, a Prince of the House of Coburg. King
+William did all in his power to discourage the attachment between Victoria
+and Albert. He was so strongly set against this match that he did all that
+he could even to prevent Prince Albert's visit to England in 1836; and
+although he never spoke to his young niece on the subject himself, she
+afterwards learned that he had devised no fewer than five matrimonial
+alternatives for her selection--that of the late Prince Alexander of the
+Netherlands always having the preference and priority. In justice to the
+memory of King William it must, however, be stated that the Dowager Queen
+Adelaide afterwards told her niece that her uncle would never have striven
+to control or restrain her affections if he had had any idea that they had
+been strongly bestowed in any particular quarter.
+
+It was in the early part of 1839, that King Leopold first wrote seriously
+to his niece on the subject--about the same time that we have seen that he
+made a similar verbal communication to his nephew. He received a
+favourable response from both, but with this difference, that the lady
+craved an indefinite delay. This idea of delay the Prince dealt with in a
+very honest and manly manner. He had, he said, no objections to
+postponement; but, nevertheless, thought he had a fair right, if he were
+to keep himself free, and thereby be compelled to decline any other career
+or line of life which might open itself out to him, to have some definite
+assurance or understanding that the engagement would be without doubt
+contracted. This concession, however, the equally natural bashfulness of
+the Queen would not suffer her to make. However, all came right in the
+end, and the Queen has very candidly confessed in her riper years, that if
+she had known as a girl what she afterwards learned as a woman, that she
+even seemed to be _playing_ with her somewhat undemonstrative but not the
+less devoted lover, she would not have exacted the semi-sacrifice which
+the Prince's self-respect caused him to feel uneasy at, but to which the
+true courtesy of his nature induced him to submit. He _did_ wait till
+1839, but the Queen afterwards learned that he came to England in that
+year prepared to declare that, in the case of further postponement, he
+must decline to consider himself bound in any way for the future.
+
+[Sidenote: FIRST MEETING WITH PRINCE ALBERT.]
+
+In October, 1839, Prince Albert, with his brother, set out from Brussels
+to England, to urge his final suit. Ere leaving Germany, he had spent a
+very pleasant time with his cousin, Count Albert Mensdorff, who was doing
+military duty with the garrison of Mayence. They then made a short journey
+together, in the course of which the one cousin confided the great secret
+to the other. "During our journey," writes the Count, "Albert confided to
+me, under the seal of the strictest confidence, that he was going to
+England to make your acquaintance, and that if you liked each other you
+were to be engaged. He spoke very seriously about the difficulties of the
+position he would have to occupy in England, but hoped that dear uncle
+Leopold would assist him with his advice." The Princes--Albert bearing
+with him a shrewd and significant letter to the Queen from King
+Leopold--arrived at Windsor on the 10th of October, where they were
+cordially received by their cousin and aunt. The Queen was much struck
+with the greatly improved appearance of the Prince, in the interval of
+three years since she had last seen him. Gay and festive entertainments
+had been arranged in their honour immediately upon their arrival. The
+Queen became more and more charmed with her cousin, and within a week
+after his arrival, she informed her Premier, Lord Melbourne, that she had
+made up her mind to the marriage. In reply, he indicated his own perfect
+satisfaction, and added that the nation was getting anxious that its
+sovereign should be married; and then he said, in a kindly way, "You will
+be much more comfortable; for a woman cannot stand alone for any time, in
+whatever position she may be."
+
+The following we present, without professing either to confirm or question
+its accuracy, but simply as being the commonly-received report, at the
+time, of the manner in which the engagement was finally effected between
+the parties directly interested:--
+
+    The Prince, in his turn, played the part of a royal lover with all the
+    grace peculiar to his house. He never willingly absented himself from
+    the Queen's society and presence, and her every wish was anticipated
+    with the alacrity of an unfeigned attachment. At length Her Majesty,
+    having wholly made up her mind as to the issue of this visit, found
+    herself in some measure embarrassed as to the fit and proper means of
+    indicating her preference to the Prince. This was a perplexing task,
+    but the Queen acquitted herself of it with equal delicacy and tact. At
+    one of the Palace balls she took occasion to present her bouquet to
+    the Prince at the conclusion of a dance, and the hint was not lost
+    upon the polite and gallant German. His close uniform, buttoned up to
+    the throat, did not admit of his placing the Persian-like gift where
+    it would be most honoured; so he immediately drew his penknife and cut
+    a slit in his dress in the neighbourhood of his heart, where he
+    gracefully deposited the happy omen. Again, to announce to the Privy
+    Council her intended union was an easy duty in comparison to that of
+    intimating her wishes to the principal party concerned; and here, too,
+    it is said that our Sovereign Lady displayed unusual presence of mind
+    and female ingenuity. The Prince was expressing the grateful sense
+    which he entertained of his reception in England, and the delight
+    which he experienced during his stay from the kind attentions of
+    royalty, when the Queen, very naturally and very pointedly, put to him
+    the question upon which their future fates depended: "If, indeed, your
+    Highness is so much pleased with this country, perhaps you would not
+    object to remaining in it, and making it your home?" No one can doubt
+    the reply.
+
+[Sidenote: THE BETROTHAL.]
+
+The day after the Queen's communication to her Premier, she caused an
+intimation to be conveyed to her lover that she desired to see him in
+private. The Prince at once waited upon her, and after a few minutes'
+general conversation, the Queen told him why she had sent for him, and
+modestly but plainly said that she was quite willing now to undertake the
+bond of betrothal. Of course, there was only one possible response, and
+the Prince joyously wrote the next day to his trusty friend and tried
+counsellor, Baron Stockmar, "on one of the happiest days of his life, to
+give him the most welcome news." The betrothal was at once communicated to
+Prince Ernest, to King Leopold, and to the Duke of Coburg. From these and
+other relatives to whom the news, as yet to be kept a family secret, was
+sent, the warmest felicitations quickly poured in. Leopold wrote,
+commending Albert in the highest terms, and emphatically congratulating
+Victoria on having secured an unmistakably good husband, concluding with
+the prayer, "May Albert be able to strew roses without thorns on the
+pathway of life of our good Victoria!"
+
+The Queen had intended to make her first formal announcement of her
+intended marriage to her Parliament; but on second thoughts, she altered
+her resolve, and selected her Privy Council as the first official
+recipients of the tidings. Of course, the Ministers had been already
+confidentially informed of the Queen's purpose; and they strongly
+counselled an early union, and both Queen and Prince acquiesced in the
+proposal. After happy and rapturous days of undoubted and now
+freely-acknowledged attachment, the Princes returned to Germany, on the
+14th of November, after a visit lasting just five weeks; Ernest to return
+to his military duties, Albert to say farewell to friends and fatherland,
+ere finally returning to the region of his new life and love.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII.
+
+THE QUEEN WEDDED.
+
+    Announcement of the intended Marriage to the Privy Council and
+    Parliament--Parliamentary Settlement of the Prince's Rank,
+    &c.--Annoying Circumstances--The Prince's Protestantism--His
+    Income--Arrival of the Bridegroom--Receives a National Welcome--The
+    Wedding--Honeymoon spent at Windsor.
+
+
+On the day after the departure of the Princes, the Queen wrote letters to
+the Queen Dowager, and the other members of the Royal Family, informing
+them of her intended marriage, and received kind letters in return from
+all. A few days later she and her mother came from Windsor to Buckingham
+Palace, where Lord Melbourne submitted the draft of the proposed
+Declaration to the Privy Council. His Lordship told the Queen that the
+Cabinet had unanimously agreed that £50,000 would be an appropriate annual
+allowance for the Prince, and that they anticipated no Parliamentary
+opposition to that amount. He also stated that there had been a stupid
+attempt to make it out that he was a Roman Catholic, and that "he was
+afraid to say anything about his religion," and accordingly had not
+touched upon it in the Declaration. This turned out, as we shall see, a
+very unwise omission; it actually gave colour and consistency to the
+absurd report.
+
+[Sidenote: ANNOUNCEMENT OF THE BETROTHAL.]
+
+On the 23rd of November, eighty-three members of the Privy Council met in
+Buckingham Palace. Precisely at two the Queen entered. She evinced much
+natural agitation, but was considerably reassured by a kindly and paternal
+look from her staunch friend, Lord Melbourne; whereupon she read the
+Declaration, which ran thus:--
+
+    I have caused you to be summoned at the present time in order that I
+    may acquaint you with my resolution in a matter which deeply concerns
+    the welfare of my people, and the happiness of my future life. It is
+    my intention to ally myself in marriage with the Prince Albert of
+    Saxe-Coburg and Gotha. Deeply impressed with the solemnity of the
+    engagement which I am about to contract, I have not come to this
+    decision without mature consideration, nor without feeling a strong
+    assurance that, with the blessing of Almighty God, it will at once
+    secure my domestic felicity and serve the interests of my country. I
+    have thought fit to make this resolution known to you at the earliest
+    period, in order that you may be apprised of a matter so highly
+    important to me and to my kingdom, and which, I persuade myself, will
+    be most acceptable to all my loving subjects.
+
+The moment the Queen had read the Declaration, Lord Lansdowne rose and
+asked, in the name of the Council, that "this most gracious and most
+welcome communication might be printed." Leave was granted, and Her
+Majesty left the room, the whole ceremony having occupied only two or
+three minutes. The Duke of Cambridge followed his niece into the
+ante-room, and warmly congratulated her. The Declaration appeared in the
+next _Gazette_, whence it was copied into all the newspapers, and was
+joyfully read and received over the whole land.
+
+There were now important questions to be settled, in Parliament, in the
+Council, and by the exercise of the Royal prerogative, as to the future
+rank and station of the Prince. Such were--Should he be made a peer? as
+had been the last consort of an English Queen, Prince George of Denmark,
+the husband of Queen Anne, of whom the only good thing that can be said
+is, that he accidentally made Arbuthnot, Pope's great friend and
+fellow-labourer, his Court physician. The idea of being made a peer was
+strenuously, sensibly, and successfully resisted by the Prince. Then there
+were the practical questions of his naturalisation, the selection of his
+Household, his position in the scale of precedence, and his income. So far
+as the Prince legitimately could and did meddle with the solution of these
+knotty points, he showed, when necessary, great sagacity, and a firmness
+very wondrous in one so young. From the very moment of his betrothal, he
+regarded himself as the custodian and guardian of his future wife's,
+rather than his own, independent position and unfettered dignity. It was
+not himself, but the husband of the Queen on behalf of whom he took a firm
+line.
+
+The Queen wished to give her husband precedence next after herself. Some
+difficulty was experienced in procuring the consent of the Royal Dukes,
+but at last their scruples were removed. Only the King of Hanover
+stubbornly held out, and the Duke of Wellington, in the House of Peers,
+declined on behalf of his party to consent. The proposal was, therefore,
+withdrawn from Parliament, but shortly after the Queen conferred a patent
+of precedence by the exercise of her own prerogative. On a similar matter
+of dispute, it was not until the Prince himself had pointed out the
+unaccountably overlooked precedent of the privilege as enjoyed by Prince
+Leopold in the life-time of the Princess Charlotte, that Garter
+King-at-Arms could be induced to withdraw his opinion adverse to Prince
+Albert quartering the Royal Arms of England with his own.
+
+In the matter of his Household, the Prince's own admirable judgment solved
+the difficulty with the clear adroitness of honest simplicity. He
+stipulated that considerations of party should have nothing to do with
+these appointments; that they should be filled by men of undoubted probity
+and purity of character; and he indicated his decided wish that they
+should be men of some kind of eminence; either very rich, very clever, or
+men who had deserved well of their country in the field of science or of
+arms. These wishes, to the Prince's considerable annoyance, were not all
+closely followed out.
+
+[Sidenote: ANNOUNCEMENT TO PARLIAMENT.]
+
+The Queen was tremendously cheered when, in January, 1840, she went to
+open Parliament, and no doubt was left in her mind as to the thorough
+popularity of the proposed union. The announcement of her intention
+contained in the Speech was a virtual repetition of that already made to
+the Council. From both sides of both Houses she was personally
+congratulated, and her choice approved, but the Duke of Wellington
+strongly objected to the omission of the statement that the Prince was a
+Protestant, with some shrewdness attributing its absence to Melbourne's
+reluctance to irritate his Irish Catholic supporters. The Duke at the same
+time repeated again and again his own perfect personal conviction in the
+thorough fidelity of the Prince to the historic and heroic Protestantism
+of his race. Lord Brougham spoke on this point, and very pertinently: "I
+may remark," he said, "that my noble friend (Lord Melbourne) is mistaken
+as to the law. There is no prohibition as to marriage with a Catholic. It
+is only attended with a penalty, and that penalty _is merely the
+forfeiture of the Crown_." In spite of this, a sentence asserting the fact
+of the Prince's Protestantism was, at the Duke of Wellington's instance,
+inserted in the Address agreed to in answer to the Speech from the Throne.
+
+There remained only the question of the Prince's annuity. Ministers
+proposed £50,000. A very large majority negatived a proposal by Mr. Hume
+to reduce it to £20,000. But the Tory leaders supported a proposal of
+Colonel Sibthorpe's to reduce it to £30,000, and by a considerable
+majority this was carried. The Queen, and her uncle Leopold, were
+extremely angry at the time at what they conceived to be the personal
+slight conveyed in this fact. But the Queen, under the wise and placable
+guidance of the Prince, afterwards learned to attribute it to the then
+heat of party rancour, still unallayed after the Bedchamber dispute; and
+the Prince at an early period of his residence in England contracted warm
+and abiding friendships with many of the men who had most strongly
+resisted Ministers on each of the above contested points.
+
+On the 28th of January, Prince Albert, accompanied by Lord Torrington and
+Colonel (now General) Grey, who had been sent to invest him with the
+insignia of the Garter and conduct him in due state to England, set out
+from Gotha, as we have already seen at a previous page. He was also
+accompanied by his father and brother. After a passing visit to King
+Leopold at Brussels, they were met at Calais by Lord Clarence Paget, who
+commanded the _Firebrand_, and escorted the distinguished visitors to the
+shores of England, at which they arrived on the 6th of February. After
+magnificent and most hearty receptions at Dover and Canterbury, they
+reached Buckingham Palace in the afternoon of Saturday, the 8th of
+February, where the Prince found his bride standing with her mother at
+the door, ready to be the first to meet and to greet him. Half an hour
+later, the Lord Chancellor administered the oath of naturalisation, and
+the Prince became a subject of Queen Victoria. A grand dinner to the
+Prince, the Ministers, and the great officers of State succeeded in the
+evening. The next day the Prince drove out, amid the cheers of immense
+crowds, to pay formal visits to all the members of the Royal Family.
+
+[Sidenote: THE WEDDING.]
+
+Monday, the 10th, was the day appointed for the wedding, which was
+magnificently celebrated in the Chapel Royal of St. James's Palace. On the
+morning of that day a larger crowd assembled in St. James's Park and its
+approaches than had been collected together in the metropolis since the
+rejoicings at the visit of the Allied Sovereigns in 1814. Not even the
+extreme inclemency of the weather abated either the patience or enthusiasm
+of the multitude. After the ladies and gentlemen of the Households of the
+Queen and the Prince had been driven along the Mall from the palace of
+residence to the palace of state, and the carriages which conveyed them
+had returned, the bridegroom was notified that all was in readiness for
+his departure. He set out, dressed as a British field-marshal, and with
+all the insignia of the Garter, the jewels of which had been a personal
+present from the Queen, having on one side his father and on the other his
+brother, both in military uniforms. He entered his carriage amid
+tremendous cheers, and the enthusiastic waving of handkerchiefs by a bevy
+of ladies privileged to stand in the grand lobbies of the palace, and was
+escorted to the chapel by a squadron of the Life Guards. On the return of
+the carriages which carried the Prince and his company, Her Majesty was
+in turn apprised that all was in readiness for her departure. She, too,
+was enthusiastically received, "but her eye was bent principally upon the
+ground." In the same carriage with the Queen rode the Duchesses of Kent
+and Sutherland. It was noticed as she drove along that she was extremely
+pale, and looked very anxious, though two or three incidents in the crowd
+caused her to smile.
+
+On her arrival at her palace of St. James's, the Queen was conducted to
+the Presence Chamber, where she remained with her maids-of-honour and
+trainbearers, awaiting the Lord Chamberlain's summons to the altar.
+Meanwhile, the colonnade within the palace, along which the bridal
+procession had to pass and repass, had been filled since early morn by the
+élite of England's rank and beauty. Each side of the way was a parterre of
+white robes, white relieved with blue, white and green, amber, crimson,
+purple, fawn, and stone colour. All wore wedding favours of lace,
+orange-flower blossoms, or silver bullion, some of great size, and many in
+most exquisite taste. Most of the gentlemen were in court dress; and the
+scene during the patient hours of waiting was made picturesque by the
+passing to and fro in various garbs of burly yeomen of the guard, armed
+with their massive halberts, slight-built gentlemen-at-arms, with
+partisans of equal slightness; elderly pages of state, and pretty pages of
+honour; officers of the Lord Chamberlain, and officers of the Woods and
+Forests; heralds all embroidery, and cuirassiers in polished steel;
+prelates in their rochets, and priests in their stoles, and singing boys
+in their surplices of virgin white.
+
+Within the chapel, in which the altar was magnificently decorated and
+laden with a profusion of gold plate, four state chairs were set, varying
+in splendour according to the rank of the destined occupants, respectively
+for Her Majesty, Prince Albert, the Queen Dowager, and the Duchess of
+Kent. The Archbishops of Canterbury and York, and the Bishop of London,
+having taken their places within the altar-rails, a flourish of trumpets
+announced the procession of the bridegroom. As the Prince passed along,
+the gentlemen greeted him with loud clapping of the hands, and the ladies
+waved their handkerchiefs with at least equal enthusiasm.
+
+[Sidenote: THE BRIDESMAIDS.]
+
+In a few minutes the procession of the bride was announced by trumpets and
+drums. It was of six or seven times the numerical strength of the
+bridegroom's, and the beauty of the twelve bridesmaids, all daughters of
+peers of the three highest grades, was specially commended. The Duchess of
+Cambridge led by the hand her then child-daughter, the Princess Mary, "and
+the mother of so beautiful a child was certainly not to be seen without
+much interest." The Duchess of Kent appeared "disconsolate and
+distressed;" while the Duke of Sussex, who was to give away the bride, was
+"in excellent spirits." The Queen herself looked "anxious and excited, and
+paler even than usual." She was dressed in a rich white satin, trimmed
+with orange-flower blossoms. She wore a wreath of the same, over which was
+a veil of rich Honiton lace, worn so as not to conceal her face. She wore
+as jewels the Collar of the Order of the Garter, with a diamond necklace
+and earrings. The bridesmaids were the Ladies Adelaide Paget, Sarah
+Villiers, Frances Cowper, Elizabeth West, Mary Grimston, Eleanor Paget,
+Caroline Lennox, Elizabeth Howard, Ida Hay, Catherine Stanhope, Jane
+Bouverie, and Mary Howard.
+
+After the conclusion of the marriage rite, the Queen hastily crossed to
+the opposite side of the altar, and kissed the Queen Dowager, who was
+standing there. She then took Prince Albert's hand, and passed down the
+aisle. On the return to Buckingham Palace, it was observed that the
+Prince, still retaining the Queen's hand in his own, whether by accident
+or design, held it in such a way as to display the wedding-ring, which was
+more solid than is usual in ordinary weddings. When the Queen had been led
+into the palace by her husband, it was observed that her morning paleness
+had entirely passed off, and that she entered her own halls with an open,
+joyous, and slightly flushed countenance.
+
+After the wedding breakfast the young couple departed, at a quarter before
+four, for Windsor, amid the cheers of the undiminished multitude. Her
+Majesty's travelling dress was a white satin pelisse, trimmed with
+swansdown, with a white satin bonnet and feather. As the cortége passed
+rapidly up Constitution Hill, the Queen bowed in return to the cheers of
+her applauding subjects with much earnestness of manner. When the Queen
+and Prince arrived at Windsor, they found the whole town illuminated, and
+received a rapturous welcome from the citizens and the Eton boys, all
+wearing favours.
+
+[Sidenote: THE WEDDING-CAKE.]
+
+We shall conclude this chapter, which we shall not desecrate by devoting
+to any other deity than Hymen, by a brief description of the Queen's
+wedding-cake, which, fortunately for our enterprise, we have succeeded in
+disinterring from the contemporary records. It was described by an
+eye-witness as consisting of all the most exquisite compounds of all the
+rich things with which the most expensive cakes can be composed, mingled
+and mixed together with delightful harmony by the most elaborate science
+of the confectioner. It weighed 300 pounds, was three yards in
+circumference, and fourteen inches in depth. On the top was a device of
+Britannia blessing the bride and bridegroom, who were dressed, somewhat
+incongruously, in the costume of ancient Rome. At the foot of the
+bridegroom was the figure of a dog, intended to denote fidelity; at the
+feet of the Queen a pair of turtle-doves. A host of gamboling Cupids, one
+of them registering the marriage in a book, and bouquets of white flowers
+tied with true-lovers' knots, completed the decorations.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV.
+
+EARLY YEARS OF MARRIED LIFE.
+
+    Difficulties and Delicacy of Prince Albert's Position--Early Married
+    Life--Studies continued--Attempts on the Queen's Life--Courage of the
+    Queen--Birth of the Princess Royal--Parting from the Whig Ladies of
+    the Bedchamber--Dark Days for England--Birth of the Prince of
+    Wales--The Queen described by M. Guizot--A Dinner at Buckingham
+    Palace--State Dinner at Windsor.
+
+
+The Queen was now married to the husband of her choice. "It is that," said
+Lord Melbourne to her, "which makes your Majesty's marriage so popular, as
+they know it is not for state reasons." A few months after the
+wedding-day, the Prince wrote to an old college associate--"I am very
+happy and contented." After the wedding, the young couple stayed for four
+days at Windsor, reading, riding, walking together, and giving small
+dinner parties in the evening. They then returned to Buckingham Palace,
+where a large crowd had collected to welcome them, and fairly commenced
+the common duties of their married life. At first it would appear that
+jealousies, in quarters which need not be specified, prevented the Prince
+taking his proper position as the head of his home and household. He wrote
+to his friend, Prince Löwenstein, in May, 1840--"I am only the husband,
+not the master in the house." But the common sense of the Queen, and the
+dignity of the Prince, soon set this matter to rights. When urged that
+she, as being Sovereign, must be the head of the house, she quietly
+rejoined that she had sworn to obey, as well as love and honour, her
+husband, and that she was determined to keep all her bridal troth. She
+communicated all foreign despatches to him, and frequently he made
+annotations on them, which were communicated to the Minister whose
+department they affected. He had often the satisfaction of discovering
+that the Minister, though he might say nothing on the subject,
+nevertheless acted upon his suggestions. His correspondence to Germany
+soon bore a very different tone and complexion. To use his own words, and
+slightly expand them, he "endeavoured to be of as much use to Victoria as
+possible." The Queen now, having received the approval of the Duke of
+Wellington, whom she consulted as a confidential friend, for the first
+time put her husband in his proper place, by giving him, by Royal Letters
+Patent, to which Parliamentary sanction is not required, rank and
+precedence next to herself, except in Parliament and the Privy Council.
+
+[Sidenote: EARLY MARRIED DAYS.]
+
+Frequent levées, and "dinners followed by little dances," formed the chief
+amusements of the young couple in the earliest stage of their married
+life. They went much, too, to the play, both having an especial relish for
+and admiration of Shakespeare. The Queen, although now a married woman, by
+no means neglected useful or solacing and refining studies. She took
+singing lessons from Lablache, and frequently sang and played with the
+Prince, sometimes using the piano, sometimes the organ as accompaniment.
+They went to Claremont, the Queen's favourite youthful haunt, to celebrate
+her birthday, and continued to do so, even after the purchase of Osborne,
+until 1848, when Claremont was given as a residence to the ex-Queen of the
+French. Both Queen and Prince were extremely glad to get away from the
+smoke and grime of London. In fact, these constituted a peculiar source of
+physical oppression to both; and they were always glad to retire to the
+rural quiet and seclusion of Claremont.
+
+[Sidenote: THE QUEEN SHOT AT.]
+
+The first alarming incident of the Queen's wedded life occurred on the
+10th of June, 1840. In her first early days of maiden queenhood, she had
+been annoyed by madmen wanting to marry her. On more than one occasion her
+saddle-horse was attempted to be stopped in the Park by one of such
+maniacs, as she was attended by an equerry; and in two instances similar
+attempts were made by innocent lunatics to force their way into Windsor
+Castle, in each case armed with nothing more deadly than a proposal of
+marriage. But what we are about to narrate was a much more serious matter.
+There is no denying the fact, that, after the first two years of her
+reign, the Queen was, for a time, by no means so popular as she had been.
+Her ministers were eminently unpopular, and to no slight extent she shared
+their unpopularity. Appalling distress prevailed, and Chartism and other
+more dangerous forms of sedition were rife. The poor asked how so much
+money could be spent on the Queen's hospitable entertainments, while they
+were starving; and inquired how it was that the name of Lord Melbourne,
+who should be supposed to have work enough to do looking after the affairs
+of the distressed nation, should appear in the newspapers almost every day
+as attending some of Her Majesty's banquets. Occasionally during the
+summer she was received in public in silence, and once or twice, in
+theatres and elsewhere, disagreeable cries were heard. More than once
+during this and one or two succeeding years, pistol-shots were fired at
+her. We select one, and the first attack upon her, as a type of the
+others. A youth named Oxford, some seventeen or eighteen years of age,
+either a fool or a madman, fired two pistol-shots at her, as she and her
+husband were driving in a phaeton up Constitution Hill. He was at once
+arrested, and it being impossible to assign any conceivable cause for the
+act, he was declared insane, and doomed to incarceration for life. Neither
+the Queen nor the Prince were injured, and both showed the utmost
+self-possession.
+
+Perhaps the best proof of her bravery on the occasion of this outrage, as
+it was an unquestionable proof of her tenderness of heart, was the fact
+that within a minute or two after the shot of Oxford had been fired, she
+had the horses' heads turned towards her mother's house, that her mother
+should see her sound and uninjured, ere an exaggerated or indiscreetly
+communicated report of the occurrence could reach her. Immediately after,
+she drove to Hyde Park, whither she had been proceeding before the outrage
+occurred, to take her usual drive before dinner. An immense concourse of
+persons of all ranks and both sexes had assembled, and the enthusiasm of
+her reception almost overpowered her. Prince Albert's face, alternately
+pale and flushed, betrayed the strength of his emotions. They returned to
+Buckingham Palace attended by a most magnificent escort of the rank and
+beauty of London, on horseback and in carriages. A great crowd of a
+humbler sort was at the Palace gates to greet her, and it was said that
+she did not lose her composure until a flood of tears relieved her
+pent-up excitement in her own chamber. "God save the Queen" was demanded
+at all the theatres in the evening, and in the immediately succeeding days
+the Queen received, seated on her throne, loyal and congratulatory
+addresses from the Peers in their robes, and wearing all their
+decorations; from the Commons, from the City Corporation, and many other
+public bodies.
+
+Oxford was incarcerated in Bethlehem Hospital, one of the great
+metropolitan lunatic asylums, in which he remained many years, and of
+which he was made one of the chief "sights" by its visitors. Perhaps it
+was this circumstance that induced the authorities to order his removal to
+Broadmoor, the state prison in which persons charged with felonious
+crimes, whose lunacy has been established, have within recent years been
+confined. There he remained until the commencement of the winter months of
+1867. During all the weary period which intervened between the
+perpetration of his offence and that date his conduct was exemplary, and
+no evidence of mental aberration appeared. At various times appeals were
+made in his behalf by influential persons who had the opportunity of
+watching his demeanour and judging his character. His own representation
+from first to last ever was that the pistol which he fired was not loaded.
+He attributed the act which so nearly cost him his life and which wasted
+the best years of his existence, to inordinate vanity, fostered by a
+variety of trivial circumstances in his domestic life, on which it is not
+necessary to dwell, and which led to a senseless desire--similar to that
+which has perpetuated the name of Erostratus, the incendiary who fired the
+Temple of Diana at Ephesus--to gain notoriety by whatever means. To a
+certain extent he educated himself during his confinement, and became a
+tolerable linguist. He also taught himself that branch of the
+house-painter's trade termed "graining," sufficiently well to enable him
+to earn a decent livelihood. At last, late in 1867, he received a free
+pardon and release, subject only to the very proper provision that he
+should expatriate himself and never return to British shores. The same
+mania, or silly senselessness, might break out again, and it is manifestly
+right that the person of the Sovereign should be protected from the vanity
+of a man who, at however distant a period, could commit the cowardly
+outrage of which he was the author.
+
+When, a year or two later, the Queen was again providentially saved from
+similar felonious attempts, their character being of the same nature as
+that of Oxford's, a strong feeling animated the general public mind that
+some special deterrent should be devised to prevent or reduce the
+likelihood of such maniacal or quasi-maniacal deeds. An Act of Parliament
+was accordingly passed, ere the close of the Session of 1843, by which
+severe flogging was imposed as part punishment in all such cases. It had
+the desired effect. From the period of its enactment until now, attempts
+to take the Queen's life, and minor assaults upon her person, have been
+almost entirely unknown.
+
+[Sidenote: BIRTH OF THE PRINCESS ROYAL.]
+
+On the afternoon of the 21st of November, the country was gladdened by the
+birth of the Queen's first-born, the Princess Royal, now Crown Princess of
+Prussia. The event occurred considerably before the period anticipated by
+the Queen's medical and other attendants, and preparations had to be made
+in a hurry. Nevertheless, the Queen soon regained her accustomed health,
+and so rapidly that we find it recorded that on the day before that
+appointed for the christening, she and a lady of the Court, exercising
+their strength and preserving their presence of mind, rescued the Prince
+from a most perilous if not fatal position. He had been skating,
+accompanied only by the Queen and one Lady-in-waiting, and had fallen
+through the ice in such a position that he could not possibly have
+extricated himself.
+
+Two days after the Princess was born, Mr. Selwyn, a gentleman with whom
+Prince Albert was reading English law and constitutional history, came to
+give his pupil his accustomed lesson. The Prince said to him, "I fear I
+cannot read any law to-day, there are so many constantly coming to
+congratulate; but you will like to see the little Princess." He took his
+tutor into the nursery, as he found that the child was asleep. Taking her
+hand, he said, "The next time we read, it must be on the rights and duties
+of a Princess Royal."
+
+In 1841 Lord Melbourne was no longer Prime Minister. Sir Robert Peel, who
+had gained the largest Parliamentary majority which had been known for
+many years, reigned in his stead. The Queen made no difficulty about the
+Ladies of the Household now. Her tastes and feelings were consulted with
+great delicacy and consideration by the Premier, and the selection of the
+Duchess of Buccleuch in the first instance as Mistress of the Robes, which
+post may be termed the female Premiership of the Household, was especially
+gratifying to Her Majesty. But her heart was, nevertheless, loth to part
+with the constant female companions of the first four years of her reign.
+Thursday, September the 2nd, was the last evening she spent with them. At
+the dinner-table she could scarcely trust herself to speak, and she is
+reported to have shed bitter tears when she retired with her ladies.
+Everybody pitied the young Sovereign, and saw and felt the hardship
+involved. But it was an inevitable accompaniment of her high position.
+
+[Sidenote: BIRTH OF THE PRINCE OF WALES.]
+
+The heir to the throne adorned by Queen Victoria was born in the midst of
+one of the very darkest periods of English history. In 1841 the condition
+of the people had been declining from the beginning of the year.
+Operatives were on half time--at last they had no work at all--and the few
+who had had the means or the will to be provident, were living on their
+savings. Public meetings were being held to consider what was to be done,
+and public subscriptions were opened. Then the idle hands commenced to
+meet in large numbers, with a sullen look of despair, waiting for death or
+alms--a comparatively small number being employed at the expense of
+municipal and other recognised bodies, in road making or road mending.
+Crime, which follows pauperism as surely and almost as rapidly as the
+obscene vulture pounces upon the carrion which is not yet cold, was rife;
+murders came in multitudes, poisonings by wholesale; murders by trades
+unionists, murders by thieves. It was when this dark cloud lowered over
+England--a cloud never completely dispelled until the rise of the great
+and glorious Free Trade sun, five years later--that the Prince of Wales
+first breathed. A _London Gazette_ extraordinary, which appeared on
+Tuesday evening, November the 9th, ran as follows:--
+
+    Buckingham Palace, Nov. 9th.
+
+    This morning, at twelve minutes before eleven o'clock, the Queen was
+    happily delivered of a Prince, His Royal Highness Prince Albert, Her
+    Royal Highness the Duchess of Kent, several Lords of Her Majesty's
+    Most Honourable Privy Council, and the Ladies of Her Majesty's
+    Bedchamber, being present.
+
+    This great and important news was immediately made known to the town
+    by the firing of the Tower and Park guns; and the Privy Council being
+    assembled as soon as possible thereupon, at the Council Chamber,
+    Whitehall, it was ordered that a Form of Thanksgiving be prepared by
+    His Grace the Archbishop of Canterbury, to be used in all churches and
+    chapels throughout England and Wales and the town of
+    Berwick-upon-Tweed, on Sunday, the 14th of November, or the Sunday
+    after the respective ministers shall receive the same.
+
+    Her Majesty and the infant Prince are, God be praised, both doing
+    well.
+
+The joy of the nation at the succession to the crown in the progeny of the
+Queen and Prince Albert being thus secured, was excessive. Upon the
+announcement of the happy accouchement, the nobility and gentry crowded to
+the Palace to tender their dutiful inquiries as to the Sovereign's
+convalescence. Amongst others, came the Lord Mayor and civic dignitaries
+in great state. They felt peculiarly proud that the Prince should have
+been born on Lord Mayor's day; in fact, just at the very moment when the
+time-honoured procession was starting from the City for Westminster. In
+memory of the happy coincidence, the Lord Mayor of the year, Mr. Pirie,
+was created Sir John Pirie, Baronet. On the 4th of December, the Queen
+created her son by Letters Patent, Prince of Wales and Earl of
+Chester:--"And him, our said and most dear son, the Prince of the United
+Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, as has been accustomed, we do
+ennoble and invest with the said Principality and Earldom, by girding him
+with a sword, by putting a coronet on his head, and a gold ring on his
+finger, and also by delivering a gold rod into his hand, that he may
+preside there, and direct and defend those parts." By the fact of his
+birth as Heir-Apparent, the Prince indefeasibly inherited, without the
+necessity of patent or creation, these dignities--the titles of Duke of
+Saxony, by right of his father; and, by right of his mother, Duke of
+Cornwall, Duke of Rothsay, Earl of Carrick, Baron of Renfrew, Lord of the
+Isles, and Great Steward of Scotland.
+
+[Sidenote: AN EMBASSY FROM FRANCE.]
+
+In the early spring of 1840, the distinguished French statesman, M.
+Guizot, came over to England, being sent hither by the French Premier,
+Marshal Soult, on a special mission with reference to those complications
+in the East, which culminated the following year in that war between the
+Sultan Mahmoud and his vassal Mehemet Ali, in which British tars under
+Stopford and "Charley Napier" played so conspicuous a part. His pacific
+mission was a failure, and from its failure dates, first the loosening,
+and then the severance, of the close relations which subsisted for eleven
+years after 1830 between the Courts of St. James's and the Tuileries.
+
+King Louis Philippe had conveyed to M. Guizot his desire that he should
+take the first opportunity of recalling to the Queen the intimacy which he
+had maintained with her father, the Duke of Kent; and Guizot resolved to
+remind Her Majesty of the circumstance when he was received by her on
+presenting his letters of credence. He prudently, however, asked Lord
+Palmerston, on whom, as Foreign Secretary, devolved the duty of presenting
+him, whether such a communication would be agreeable. Lord Palmerston
+instantly replied in the negative. He stated that the reception would be
+a purely official formality, and gave him to understand that the Queen
+would much prefer not having to reply to any speech. He therefore
+determined to abstain from making one. On the last day of February, he
+received a note at ten minutes past one from Lord Palmerston, stating that
+the Queen would be glad to receive him that day at one o'clock. Guizot
+immediately sent to Palmerston "to explain the delay, and his own
+innocence." He then dressed with all speed, and reached Buckingham Palace
+a little before two. Precisely at the moment of his arrival, Lord
+Palmerston's carriage also drove up. He told Guizot that the Queen's
+orders had been forwarded to him (Palmerston) too late. Luckily, the Queen
+had other audiences to give, which occupied her fully until the appearance
+of the two astute and rival diplomats. But another difficulty arose. There
+was no Master of Ceremonies at hand to introduce him. Sir Robert Chester,
+who held that post, had received his summons, as tardily as that which had
+been sent to Lord Palmerston. That gentleman had not hastened his
+movements so rapidly as the active Frenchman. Although a breach of form,
+Lord Palmerston, therefore, undertook and performed the office of Sir
+Robert. The Queen received Guizot "with a gracious manner at once youthful
+and serious." He remarked that the dignity of her manner caused one to
+forget the smallness of her stature. On entering, he said, "I trust,
+Madam, that your Majesty is aware of my excuse, for of myself [that is, if
+the blame of unpunctuality rested with me] I should be inexcusable." She
+smiled in return, as if little surprised at, and quite used to, the want
+of punctuality. After all, in spite of Lord Palmerston's instructions to
+him, the Queen did grant him, in the strict and literal sense of the term,
+an audience. Though short, it was long enough to enable the Queen to chat
+with him, and inquire about his Sovereign, his consort, and their family.
+The Queen, of course, was warmly interested about the Orleans family, for
+one of the daughters of its head was the second wife of her uncle, King
+Leopold, and, therefore, her matrimonial aunt. So that Guizot _did_ find
+and embrace the opportunity of reminding the Queen of the intimacy between
+his royal master and her father.
+
+[Sidenote: M. GUIZOT AT BUCKINGHAM PALACE.]
+
+As he was retiring, Lord Palmerston, who remained a moment or two with the
+Queen, after she had bid M. Guizot adieu, said hastily to him, "There is
+something more; I am going to introduce you to Prince Albert and the
+Duchess of Kent; you could not otherwise be presented to them, except at
+the next levée, on the 6th of March, but it is necessary, on the contrary,
+that on that day you should be already old friends." These further
+presentations were, accordingly, made; Guizot being struck with the
+political intelligence which the conversation of the Prince, in spite of
+his constitutional reserve, displayed. Guizot left the palace greatly
+pleased with his reception. As he passed through the hall, he saw the
+Master of Ceremonies in hot haste descending from his carriage, and
+"anxious to apologise to him, with temper somewhat ruffled, for his
+involuntary uselessness."
+
+An invitation to dinner at Buckingham Palace for five days after quickly
+reached him at his residence, Hertford House. He remarked on the want of
+animation and interest in the conversation, whether at the dinner-table or
+in the drawing-room. Politics of any kind, home or foreign, were,
+apparently to his surprise, strictly avoided. When the gentlemen joined
+the ladies, which, throughout the Queen's reign, has been at a very short
+interval after the departure of the latter from the dining-room, they all
+sat on chairs round a circular table set before the Queen, who occupied a
+sofa. Two or three of her ladies engaged themselves in fancy work; Prince
+Albert challenged some one to a game at chess. Lady Palmerston and M.
+Guizot, "with some effort," carried on a flagging dialogue. The
+conversation being thus flat, M. Guizot took to looking at the pictures on
+the walls, of which there were but three, hung over the different doors of
+the apartment. He was very much astonished at the extraordinary contrasts
+in the subjects of these pictures. They certainly were most incongruous.
+One was Fénélon, the second the Czar Peter, and the third Anne Hyde, the
+discarded wife of James II. He asked one of his fellow-guests whether the
+combination was intentional or an accident? But he could get no
+satisfaction on the subject. No one had remarked the combination, and no
+one could tell the reason for it.
+
+At the levée which he attended the day following, he was still more
+astounded and perplexed. He thought its presentations and other
+paraphernalia "a long and monotonous ceremony." Yet it inspired this keen
+and philosophic student of men and manners with "real interest." We shall
+allow M. Guizot, ere we finally leave his companionship, to express his
+views on this peculiarly English institution in his own words:--"I
+regarded with excited esteem the profound respect of that vast
+assembly--courtiers, citizens, lawyers, churchmen, officers, military and
+naval, passing before the Queen, the greater portion bending the knee to
+kiss her hand, all perfectly solemn, sincere, and awkward. The sincerity
+and seriousness were both needed to prevent those antiquated habits, wigs,
+and bags, those costumes which no one in England now wears except on such
+occasions, from appearing somewhat ridiculous. But I am little sensible to
+the outward appearance of absurdity when the substance partakes not of
+that character."
+
+[Sidenote: FANCY BALL AT COURT.]
+
+As a companion picture of the Queen at home at this epoch of her reign,
+for the lineaments of which we have acknowledged our indebtedness to M.
+Guizot, we present these recollections of the Queen in her young married
+days, which we condense from a gossiping work by Lord William Lennox. The
+Queen had a splendid new ballroom built in Buckingham Palace, and nothing
+could exceed the brilliancy of the entertainments which she gave there. To
+one of these, in 1842, Lord Lennox received an invitation. It was a _bal
+costumé_, the first, he believed, which had ever been given in England by
+a Prince of the House of Brunswick. A second ball, in which, unlike the
+former, the dresses were confined to the reigns of George II. and III.,
+was given in the same year. All had to appear in powder--a somewhat trying
+ordeal to such ladies and gentlemen as did not possess fine features.
+
+[Sidenote: A STATE BANQUET AT WINDSOR.]
+
+Somewhat about the same time, Lord Lennox dined at Windsor Castle, at the
+great banquet given on the Ascot Cup day. A magnificent déjeuner had been
+served for luncheon on the course in Tippoo Sahib's tent. At the dinner in
+the evening, the first thing which struck one who was a guest for the
+first time on such an occasion, was the exact punctuality of the Queen
+and Prince. Although necessarily fatigued with the bustle and excitement
+of the day, they were in the drawing-room some minutes before the dinner
+was announced, and after a courteous greeting to all the guests, proceeded
+at once to dinner. Another observable peculiarity was that the Prince left
+the table twenty minutes after the ladies. The banqueting-room on this
+great occasion was St. George's Hall, splendid with its ceiling emblazoned
+with the arms of the Knights of the Garter from the institution of the
+order, and the portraits of our kings from James I. to George IV. At each
+end of the hall, buffets, seventeen feet high and forty broad, were set.
+They were of rich fretted Gothic framework, covered with crimson cloth,
+and brilliant with massive gold plate. Immediately opposite the Queen was
+set a pyramid of plate, its apex being the tiger's head captured at
+Seringapatam, and comprising the "Iluma" of precious stones which Lord
+Wellesley, the Governor-General of India, presented to George IV. The
+table, which was laid for a hundred guests, extended the whole length of
+the hall. All down the centre, epergnes, vases, cups, and candelabra were
+ranged, the celebrated St. George's candelabrum being opposite Her
+Majesty. The hall was splendidly illuminated, and two bands of the Guards
+discoursed sweet music from a balcony. The Yeomen of the Guard stood on
+duty at the entrance. The repast, which did ample justice to the merits of
+the Queen's renowned _cuisiniér_, Francatelli, was entirely served in gold
+plate, and the attendance was so faultless that there was less bustle and
+confusion than usually attend a repast shared by a party of ten or a
+dozen. At a quarter to nine grace was said; and after the dessert and wine
+had been placed on the table, the Lord Steward rose and proposed, without
+remark, "The Queen." The Queen simply, when the toast had been drunk,
+bowed her acknowledgments. After a brief pause, the health of Prince
+Albert was drunk standing, as the Queen's had been, the band playing the
+"Coburg March." At half-past nine the Queen rose, and, accompanied by the
+Duchess of Kent, was followed by all the ladies to the drawing-room. In
+about twenty minutes all the gentlemen followed. The Waterloo Chamber was
+thrown open, and its rich historical and pictorial treasures were keenly
+inspected by groups of the guests. Amongst others of its chief ornaments,
+attention was concentrated on the swords of the Pretenders James and
+Charles, Prince Rupert's coat of mail, and the magnificent shield, by
+Cellini, presented by Francis I. to King Henry VIII., at the Field of the
+Cloth of Gold. But the great treat of the evening was the appearance of
+Madame Rachel, who, with two or three French actors, gave _morceaux_ from
+her principal impersonations. The success of her performance was the more
+conspicuous that it was entirely unaided by scenery, dress, or other
+histrionic accompaniment. A little before twelve the Queen, after
+addressing with the utmost grace some words of courteous appreciation to
+the great _tragedienne_, and bowing to the assembled guests, retired,
+leaning on her husband's arm.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV.
+
+THE QUEEN IN SCOTLAND.
+
+    Christening of the Prince of Wales--Manufacturing Distress--Queen's
+    Efforts to alleviate it--Assesses Herself to the Income Tax--Resolves
+    to Visit Scotland--Embarks at Woolwich--Beacon Fires in the Firth of
+    Forth--Landing on Scottish Soil--A Disappointment--Formal Entry into
+    Edinburgh--Richness of Historical and Ancestral Associations--The
+    Queen on the Castle Rock--A Highland Welcome--Departure from Scotland.
+
+
+The Session of 1842 was opened by the Queen in person with unusual
+splendour, which was enhanced by the presence of the King of Prussia, who
+had come over to stand sponsor to the Prince of Wales. The christening was
+performed on the 25th of January, and was attended with all due
+magnificence, and succeeded by a splendid banquet. Mr. Raikes, in his
+amusing, valuable journal, thus records the event:--
+
+    _Tuesday, 25th._--The day of the Royal christening at Windsor. The
+    Prince of Wales is named Albert Edward. All who have been there say
+    that the scene was very magnificent, and the display of plate at the
+    banquet superb. After the ceremony a silver-embossed vessel containing
+    a whole hogshead of mulled claret was introduced, and served in
+    bucketfuls to the company, who drank the young Prince's health. Very
+    few ladies were invited.
+
+[Sidenote: NATIONAL DISTRESS AND ROYAL SYMPATHY.]
+
+The Queen's speech of this year noticed with deep regret the continued
+distress in the manufacturing districts of the country, and bore testimony
+to the exemplary patience and fortitude with which it had been borne.
+Many people began once more to murmur at the continued flow of gaiety at
+Windsor where the young parents still seemed to experience the first
+thrills of transport at the birth of a son and heir. Some of the lowest
+class of seditious newspapers began the practice of printing in parallel
+columns the description of the fancy dresses at the Queen's balls (the
+purchase and preparation of which must certainly have tended to alleviate
+the distress), &c., and reports from the pauperised districts, records of
+deaths from starvation, and the like. Among the unthinking classes such
+disloyal practices produced a very deep feeling of dissatisfaction. In the
+course of the year two attempts were reported as having been made upon the
+Queen's life: one, however, being merely the freak of an ill-natured boy,
+but the other was of a much more serious description, and cost its author
+transportation for life. Sir Robert Peel felt it his duty to discharge the
+part of a faithful Minister, and to counsel his Royal mistress to lessen
+the gaieties of the Court, even if it were only in deference to the
+prejudices of the starving and maddened poor. He neither roused nor
+augmented her fears, but gave her the counsel which the time required. The
+Queen at once acted, and without taking offence, upon the Minister's
+advice. At the christening of the Prince of Wales all the ladies of the
+Court appeared in Paisley shawls, English lace, and other articles of home
+manufacture. And when the christening was over a marked sobriety settled
+down over the Court, and continued during all the summer of 1842. Even the
+most querulous speedily granted that they had no reason to complain.
+
+This change in the sentiments of the public, especially its lower and more
+distressed portions, was promoted and accelerated by an act, equally
+tasteful and touching, of Her Majesty during this year. In the spring of
+1842, Sir Robert Peel, now thoroughly warm in his seat as Premier,
+commanding a large working majority, and not yet having awakened the
+hostility of the decidedly Protectionist section of his followers,
+inaugurated that splendid series of bravely devised measures in the
+direction of Free Trade, of which the great Anti-Corn Law Act of four
+years later was, so far as he was concerned, the culmination. In 1842,
+Peel proposed and carried a Budget which considerably lessened the burden
+of Customs imposts, but the chief merit and recommendation of which
+consisted in the fact that it relieved the nation of the incubus of a host
+of very galling excise duties on such articles of common use as glass,
+leather, bricks, and soap. These beneficial remissions of taxation could
+not have been effected by him--for they entailed a heavy cost upon the
+revenue, already inadequate to meet the annual expenditure--but for the
+re-imposition of an Income Tax, a means of raising revenue which had been
+long disused, to the extent of sevenpence in the pound on all incomes
+above £150 of annual value. This, of course, did not affect the allowance
+made to the Sovereign. Nevertheless, Her Majesty evinced her sympathy at
+once with the prevailing distress and with the daring fiscal expedient of
+the Premier, by coming forward unsolicited to offer to receive an
+abatement of her income, based upon the precise scale of that imposed by
+Parliament upon her subjects.
+
+Up to the Queen's reign, the members of the House of Brunswick had never
+been peripatetic in their tendencies. The first two Georges had made
+frequent visits to their patrimonial German electorate, but they evinced
+no desire to visit England beyond the immediate environs of London. George
+III. never passed out of England; George IV. visited Ireland and Scotland
+each on one occasion; but with these exceptions, hardly any British
+highways were traversed by his wheels during his reign, whether as
+Sovereign Regent or Regnant, except the great roads connecting his capital
+with Windsor, Brighton, and Newmarket. William IV. was too old when he
+came to the throne to make it at all probable that he would evince any
+taste to visit any of the outlying portions of his dominions; nor did he
+do so. Queen Victoria, as we have copiously seen in earlier chapters, was
+from her very infancy habituated to moving about from place to place, and
+all along she has proved herself as proud as Queen Elizabeth herself of
+mingling with and showing herself to her people.
+
+[Sidenote: FIRST VISIT TO SCOTLAND.]
+
+For some time the Queen was understood to have contemplated a journey to
+the land of those Stuart ancestors by virtue of whose Tudor blood they,
+and the Brunswick line through them, and she through it, inherited the
+British crown. In the autumn of this year all seemed propitious for the
+journey, and it was undertaken accordingly by herself and her young
+husband. Their first destination was the Scottish capital, and as the
+railway system connecting the southern and northern extremities of the
+island was yet far from complete, the journey was made by water from the
+Thames to the Forth, the port of embarkation being Woolwich, and of
+debarkation, Granton, a minor harbour in the immediate neighbourhood of
+Edinburgh.
+
+The expected visit was awaited and prepared for in the North with the
+utmost eagerness of expectancy. Half Scotland seemed to have emptied
+itself into the metropolis to do her honour. In their preparations,
+burgher vied with noble, tartan-clad Highlanders with Lowlanders in their
+more sombre blue bonnets and hodden grey. On the 29th of August, the Queen
+left Windsor, and proceeded to Woolwich, where she embarked amid the
+acclamations of her metropolitan and Kentish subjects at an early hour of
+the same day. In a Royal yacht, towed by a steam ship of war, the voyage
+was safely effected in the fine weather and on the placid wave of early
+autumn. In due time the Royal squadron arrived off Dunbar, which, with the
+Bass Rock and Tantallon Castle, form together a fine _coup-d'oeil_ of
+romantic coast scenery and middle age antiquity, at the mouth of the Firth
+of Forth. Here it was met by large steamers filled by welcomers from
+Edinburgh and its neighbourhood, who greeted their illustrious visitors
+with loud huzzahs, and the strains of that National Anthem, which, though
+of English birth, was chaunted right lustily by Scottish lungs and lips.
+It was observed that Her Majesty, who came on board and acknowledged the
+vivas of her subjects, had paid the Scots the compliment of enveloping
+herself in a Paisley shawl; and when, a day or two later, she made her
+formal entry past the church sanctified by the preaching of John Knox, to
+the Castle, in a narrow chamber of which her unfortunate ancestor Queen
+Mary bore her son King James, she wore, with even more conspicuously
+appropriate taste, a shawl of Stuart tartan.
+
+[Sidenote: LANDING ON SCOTTISH SOIL.]
+
+As she passed up the Firth, under cover of the gathering night, every peak
+on either side of the estuary, from St. Abb's Head, which she had left
+behind, away westwards to the Pentlands, the Lomonds, and the Ochils, was
+surmounted by a blazing beacon--a splendid sight, and stimulative by
+contrast to the imaginations of those who recollected to what different
+uses beacon-fires on Scottish hills and Scottish Border Keeps had been put
+in earlier days of the international relations of England and Scotland.
+The fiery welcome was returned from the Royal yacht, by the letting off of
+rockets, and the burning of blue lights.
+
+At last the squadron came in sight in the roads before Leith, the anchor
+being let down--"a welcome sound," wrote the Queen--at a quarter to one
+o'clock on the morning of Thursday, September the 1st. Every one of the
+heights on or under the domination of which Edinburgh stands, had been
+crowded all the previous day with tens of thousands of spectators. All at
+once two guns from the castle, and a signal flag hoisted from the summit
+of Nelson's column, some 400 feet above the level of the sea, announced
+the arrival. The Queen slept and rested herself after the fatigues of her
+voyage on board the Royal yacht; and she took her good but inalert
+subjects by surprise, by effecting her landing at an hour so early on the
+succeeding morning, that many of them, wearied by their recent vigils, had
+not yet left their couches, and even the corporate dignitaries were
+subject to the mortification of not having the honour to receive and
+welcome their Queen as her foot first touched Scottish soil. In their
+absence, that pleasurable duty was discharged by Sir Robert Peel, and the
+Duke of Buccleuch, whose guest she was about to be at his palace of
+Dalkeith, and who had ridden immediately after her carriage, as
+Captain-General of her body-guard of Scottish Archers, on the day on which
+she was crowned queen at Westminster. Sir Robert Peel told the Queen that
+the people were all in the highest glee and good humour, though a little
+disappointed at the non-arrival of the squadron the day before, as had
+been expected.
+
+With the extraordinarily auspicious fatality which has made "Queen's
+weather" so trite and proverbial an expression, the sun splendidly burst
+forth at the moment of her landing, and continued to shine throughout her
+progress through a portion of the New Town of Edinburgh; its bright
+freestone streets and terraces sparkling in the clear, sunlit air--past
+her ancient Palace of Holyrood, and so through fertile Lothian to the
+mansion of the princely head of the old Border House of the Scotts. When
+the customary ensign was hauled down from the top of the rugged Castle
+Rock, and the Royal Standard was hoisted in its place, the streets at once
+filled, and the loyal shouts of the crowds, who hastily assembled in no
+small force, sufficiently atoned for the absence of those whom the
+somewhat unexpected arrival balked for this one day of the delight of
+expressing their devotion.
+
+[Sidenote: FIRST IMPRESSIONS OF SCOTLAND.]
+
+The impression which her first view of Edinburgh made upon the Queen was
+very striking and most favourable. She thought it "beautiful, totally
+unlike anything else she had seen." Even Prince Albert, a great traveller
+while yet in his teens, and who had visited very many great and renowned
+cities, also said it was unlike anything which he had witnessed. The
+massive stone buildings, with not a solitary brick used in their
+construction; the great dorsal fin of the High Street; the magnificent
+situation of the Castle; the Calton Hill, guarded by mediæval battlements
+and crowned by Choragic temples, with the noble back-ground of Arthur's
+Seat overtopping the whole, together impressed the youthful tourists as
+"forming altogether a splendid spectacle."
+
+As the carriages drove through the city, the Earl of Wemyss, who marched
+by the Queen's side in his green uniform of a Scottish Archer of the
+Guard, pointed out to Her Majesty the varied objects of interest on the
+line of route through the eastern portions of the city to the Duke of
+Buccleuch's palace of Dalkeith. When they got into the open country, she
+was further astonished to find that not only all the cottages, but even
+the fences dividing field from field, were also built of stone. The
+peasants by the wayside were equally objects of curiosity and interest, as
+they had "quite a different character from England and the English." The
+close caps--_Scottice_, "mutches"--of the old women, and the long, flowing
+hair, frequently red, of the handsome girls and children, were equal
+novelties to the royal "Southrons." The Prince was struck with the
+resemblance of the country people to Germans. Other Scottish specialties
+appeared at the breakfast-table at Dalkeith, in the form of oatmeal
+porridge and "Finnan Haddies"--the first of which, at least, found
+immediate favour with Her Majesty.
+
+The grand ceremonial of entering the ancient city in state was reserved
+for the Saturday after the arrival; the interval having been devoted by
+the royal party to quiet and repose in the magnificent domain of
+Buccleuch, and drives to objects of interest in its neighbourhood. The
+line of the cavalcade, on this red-letter day, was up the steep ascent of
+the Canongate, High Street, and Lawnmarket, from the Palace of Holyrood
+(which the Queen rightly pronounced "a royal-looking old place") to the
+Castle which the Black Douglas scaled, where George Buchanan's pedantic
+Stuart pupil was born, and from the parapets of which various and shifting
+prospects are to be descried, which may be equalled, but cannot be
+surpassed, in any portion of Her Majesty's dominions.
+
+[Sidenote: THE QUEEN IN EDINBURGH CASTLE.]
+
+It was indeed historic ground along which the Queen passed this day. Every
+one of the stupendous houses of eight, ten, or even more stories, which
+formed a mighty avenue of stone on either side of the ancient causeway
+along which the steeds which drew her carriage slowly and deliberately
+proceeded, had some tale of long gone days to tell, many of them being
+most intimately associated with the fortunes of her Stuart ancestors. On
+her way she passed the site of that tower in which Darnley, her ancestor,
+was blown into eternity. Ere she left her Palace of Holyrood and the
+adjacent ruins of the abbey which was erected by that Scottish king who
+built and endowed so many abbeys that his subjects piteously exclaimed
+that he was a "saur saunt for the Croon," she may have seen the
+blood-stains of Rizzio, and the somewhat mythical portraits of the Kings
+of the Houses of Kenneth, Bruce, and the Stuarts. On one side of her was
+the old mansion of the Regent Moray, on the other the spot where, for the
+first and only time, the boy Francis Jeffrey set eyes upon Robert Burns.
+Here was the ancient oaken hall where the Scottish Parliament sate, there
+the office of that Scottish journal of which Daniel Defoe, the staunch and
+loyal friend of William III., was the first editor. Here was the house in
+which John Knox lived and died, there the church in which he preached with
+such fervour for that Protestant faith, with the establishment of which in
+Europe both lines of her ancestors were so intimately identified. And when
+she arrived on the esplanade of the Castle itself, she could look across
+the Forth on the one side to the minor mountain which casts its morning
+shadow into Loch Leven, from her captivity on an islet of which Scottish
+Catholic gentlemen so gallantly rescued her Stuart ancestress; while
+immediately beneath her lay the Grassmarket--at once the Tower and the
+Smithfield of Scotland--where Montrose and Argyll expiated respectively
+their loyalty to the Stuart race, and to freedom of soul and speech.
+
+As the cortège passed up the streets along which Prince Charlie had passed
+when he held court at Holyrood just ninety-seven years before, as she
+received at the site of the old Tolbooth the keys of the city from the
+Lord Provost, bending the knee beside his fellow-burghers, clad in the old
+costumes of the Trades, and close beside a guard of honour of Highlanders
+headed by the present Duke of Argyll; or as she stood surveying from the
+topmost battery of the citadel her fair ancestral domains of Lothian and
+Fife, and the distant mountains which tower o'er Loch Lomond and the
+Trossachs, some such proud and pathetic recollections as these must have
+occupied and touched the heart of the youngest and the mightiest monarch
+in Europe. Their closer acquaintance with Edinburgh increased the mingled
+amazement and delight of the Queen and Prince. Prince Albert pronounced
+the view of it from the margin of the Firth of Forth as "fairy-like,"
+"what you would imagine as a thing to dream of, or to see in a picture."
+He said he felt sure the Acropolis could not be finer, and the Queen at
+once recognised the appropriateness of the idealised metamorphosis of
+"Auld Reekie" (_Anglice_, "Old Smoky") into "the Modern Athens." The Leith
+ticket-porters, mounted on flower-decked horses, with broad,
+ribbon-decorated Kilmarnock bonnets, and the pretty Newhaven fishwives,
+with their clear, peachy complexions and Danish costumes, were objects of
+peculiar interest.
+
+[Sidenote: THE QUEEN IN THE HIGHLANDS.]
+
+Space fails us to enter into details of the further incidents of this, the
+Queen's first visit to her Scottish dominion. Enough to say that she
+received in the Highlands, where she visited in succession not a few of
+her oldest nobles of Gaelic and Norman descent, receptions as rapturous as
+that which she experienced in the Modern Athens. The welcome, if it could
+not be more hearty, was at least attended with more picturesque
+accessories in the romantic region where the dialect and the "garb of Old
+Gael" still to a large extent prevail. At Dupplin Castle, at Scone Palace,
+where her ancestors were crowned, at Blair Athole, at Taymouth, and at
+Drummond Castle, she was entertained with equal splendour, and with the
+true and special elements of "Highland Welcome." She may be almost said to
+have passed through a continuous succession of triumphal arches. Every
+chieftain brought out all his available clansmen, all in kilts, claymores,
+and Glengarry bonnets, to act as guards of honour. Balls, in which the
+national dances, performed by the best born cadets of the noble houses of
+whom she was the guest, constituted the chief feature, alternated with
+deer-stalking, for the especial behoof of the Prince; processions of boats
+on the lake through which rolls the Tay, a river only less rapid than the
+Spey; and visits to places of historic interest or romantic beauty.
+
+The Queen was especially charmed with the beautiful situation of the
+ancient city of Perth, and the enthusiastic reception which the multitudes
+there assembled gave to her. Prince Albert, too, was delighted, and
+likened the appearance of the place to Basle. At Scone Palace, which is
+within two miles of Perth, a very natural object of peculiar interest was
+the mound on which all the Scottish kings had been crowned. At Dunkeld the
+Highlands were fairly entered; and here the Royal party were met and
+escorted by a guard of Athole Highlanders, armed with halberts, and headed
+by a piper. One of them danced the sword dance, with which the travellers
+were greatly amused, and others of them figured in a reel.
+
+The longest sojourn made in the Highlands was at Taymouth, the seat of the
+Marquis of Breadalbane. The scenery here again revived recollections of
+Switzerland in the memory of Prince Albert, who was particularly prone, in
+this and subsequent visits to the North, to trace resemblances between its
+scenery and localities which he had visited in the tours of his bachelor
+days. The reception at Taymouth was magnificent, and quite captivated the
+illustrious guests. The Queen wrote in her journal--
+
+    The _coup d'oeil_ was indescribable. There were a number of Lord
+    Breadalbane's Highlanders, all in the Campbell tartan, drawn up in
+    front of the house, with Lord Breadalbane himself in a Highland dress
+    at their head; a few of Sir Niel Menzies' men (in the Menzies red and
+    white tartan), a number of pipers playing, and a company of the 92nd
+    Highlanders, also in kilts. The firing of the guns, the cheering of
+    the great crowd, the picturesqueness of the dresses, the beauty of the
+    surrounding country, with its rich back-ground of wooded hills,
+    altogether formed one of the finest scenes imaginable. It seemed as if
+    a great chieftain in olden feudal times was receiving his Sovereign.
+    It was princely and romantic.
+
+Wherever the Queen rambled during her stay by the shores of Loch Tay, she
+was guarded by two Highlanders, and it recalled to her mind "olden times,
+to see them with their swords drawn." Walking one day with the Duchess of
+Norfolk, the Queen and her noble companion met "a fat, good-humoured
+little woman." She cut some flowers for the ladies, and the Duchess handed
+to her some money, saying, "From Her Majesty." The poor woman was
+perfectly astounded, but, recovering her wits, came up to the Queen, and
+said naïvely that "her people were delighted to see the Queen in
+Scotland." Wherever the royal visitors were, or went, the inevitable
+strains of the bagpipes were heard. They played before the Castle at
+frequent intervals throughout the day, from breakfast till dinner-time,
+and invariably when they went in or out of doors. When rowed in boats on
+the lake, two pipers sat in the bows and played; and the Queen, who had
+grown "quite fond" of the bagpipes, was reminded of the lines of Scott,
+with whose poems she had, from an early age, possessed the most intimate
+familiarity:--
+
+    "See the proud pipers in the bow,
+    And mark the gaudy streamers flow
+    From their loud chambers down, and sweep
+    The furrow'd bosom of the deep,
+    As, rushing through the lake amain,
+    They plied the ancient Highland strain."
+
+[Sidenote: DEPARTURE FROM SCOTLAND.]
+
+On the 13th of September the return journey from the Highlands by
+Stirling, the ancient Castle of which was visited, to Dalkeith Palace, had
+been completed. Two days later the Queen and Prince re-embarked at
+Granton, _en route_ for Woolwich and Windsor.
+
+Although a by no means excessive quantity of time--but a fortnight--was
+consumed in the tour, some idea of the rapidity with which distances were
+traversed, and the extent of ground covered, may be gathered from the fact
+that no fewer than 656 post-horses were employed. The Queen touched the
+hearts of the Highlanders--among whom Jacobitism remained, not as an
+element of personal devotion to a fallen house, but not the less as a deep
+chord of pathos and poetry--by commanding a Scottish vocalist, at a
+concert given in her honour at Blair Athole, to sing two of the most
+beloved of Jacobite songs--"Cam' ye by Athole," and "Wae's me for Prince
+Charlie." When she once more embarked at Granton on her homeward route,
+she left memories of pleasure and affection which far exceeded the
+intensely ardent excitement which had preceded and greeted her landing. On
+the last day which she spent in Scotland, the Queen wrote in her
+journal--"This is our last day in Scotland; it is really a delightful
+country, and I am very sorry to leave it." And the day after, watching its
+vanishing coast--"As the fair shores of Scotland receded more and more
+from our view, we felt quite sad that this very pleasant and interesting
+tour was over; but we shall never forget it."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI.
+
+WHAT ENGLAND OWES TO PRINCE ALBERT.
+
+    The Prince's Study of our Laws and Constitution--Two Misconceptions
+    Outlived--His Versatility--First Speech an Anti-Slavery One--His
+    Appreciation and Judicious Criticism of Art--Scientific Side of his
+    Mind--As an Agriculturist.
+
+
+It will not be undesirable at this stage of our narrative to interpose a
+summary compendium of some indications of the manner in which Prince
+Albert, or the "Prince Consort," as he was designated by Royal Letters
+Patent, after 1857, discharged the high, onerous, and important duties to
+which his position called him. If the conduct and career of a husband be
+an integral and large part of a woman's life, it is tenfold more so in the
+case of a woman who is also a queen, and especially a queen-regnant in and
+by her own right. The large and enlarging breadth of mind which the Prince
+soon began to display; the abundant tenderness of heart, which found at
+once indication and exercise in the admirable and diverse modes in which
+he advanced all agencies of public utility and associated benevolence; the
+excellent mode in which, equally as a father and a husband, he evinced the
+warm glow of domestic virtue which animated his bosom, and the absolute
+and much-wanted scientific and artistic lessons which he taught more than
+any other man, during his life in England, to the somewhat uncouth people
+of whom he became a part--all these, and other elements of character and
+conduct, indirectly increased the growing esteem in which the Queen was
+held, on her own merits, by her people; for we might have had to look
+forward to a different national future, so far as a national future can be
+moulded in the sense of either making or marring, had the "father of our
+future kings" been other and lesser than what he was. Such a man as the
+Prince Consort must necessarily have wielded a very large and weighty
+influence upon the character of the royal lady whom he married. The
+history of her life, therefore, even if it were traced within narrower
+limits than those within whose compression our task must be discharged,
+would be insufficiently delineated without the introduction of such
+episodical but most relevant matter as that to which this chapter is
+briefly dedicated.
+
+Almost the first task which the Prince Consort undertook when he came
+amongst us was to set himself to an assiduous study of our laws and
+institutions. He secured the services of a most competent instructor in
+themes so important to one who stood so near the throne, in the person of
+the late Mr. William Selwyn, Q.C. Mr. Selwyn was a sound jurist, and under
+his guidance the Prince read such works as Blackstone, De Lolme, Hallam,
+Bentham, and Mill. He proved himself an apt student, for he had the
+capacity for study eminently developed; and, besides, his position was one
+of singular difficulty and delicacy. He stood so near to the throne,
+amongst a people, too, traditionally jealous of aliens, and especially of
+aliens in high places, that any utterance he might be called upon to make
+would be considered as almost, if not quite, emanating from the throne
+itself. Although a certain cabinet intrigue, and one rare expression of
+his own--not so much unguarded in itself, as wanting in explicitness, and
+capable of a certain misconstruction--did, on two several occasions,
+provoke in certain quarters something approaching to national disfavour,
+he soon outlived the misconception; and the universal sentiment of the
+people came round to the conviction that the Prince was faithful and loyal
+to the constitution to which he had sworn fidelity; nay more, that he had
+fairly caught, apprehended, and absorbed into his being the very genius
+and spirit of the English race.
+
+[Sidenote: PRINCE ALBERT S FIRST SPEECH.]
+
+The first speech the Prince made in England was at an anti-slavery
+meeting; the last at the opening of an international statistical congress.
+The former was delivered during the first summer of his married life. It
+is so brief, and it gives, as it were, so thoroughly the key-note of his
+character, that our readers will thank us for giving it entire:--
+
+    I have been induced to preside at the meeting of this society from a
+    conviction of its paramount importance to the great interests of
+    humanity and justice. I deeply regret that the benevolent and
+    persevering exertions of England to abolish that atrocious traffic in
+    human beings (at once the desolation of Africa and the blackest stain
+    upon civilised Europe) have not as yet led to any satisfactory
+    conclusion. But I sincerely trust that this great country will not
+    relax in its efforts until it has finally, and for ever, put an end to
+    a state of things so repugnant to the spirit of Christianity and the
+    best feelings of our nature. Let us, therefore, trust that Providence
+    will prosper our exertions in so holy a cause, and that (under the
+    auspices of our Queen and her Government) we may, at no distant
+    period, be rewarded by the accomplishment of the great and humane
+    object for the promotion of which we have this day met.
+
+We have already remarked the wide range of Prince Albert's endeavours,
+study, devotion, and consequent usefulness. He presided at dinners of the
+Literary Fund, and of the Royal Academy; at the Trinity House most
+frequently, and at many agricultural meetings. Two of the best and most
+pregnant with good of his addresses, were delivered at the meetings of
+associations designed respectively for the better housing of labourers,
+and in behalf of the large and sorely tempted class of domestic servants.
+Now he presided at the Bicentenary of the Corporation of the Sons of the
+Clergy; again at the two hundredth anniversary of one of our most
+illustrious regiments of Foot Guards. On art, as all were prepared to
+expect, he delivered ripe words of wisdom at the Royal Academy in
+Trafalgar Square, and in laying the foundation in the capital of his
+wife's Stuart ancestors of a new National Gallery for her Scottish
+subjects. Against the expectation, and to the loudly expressed surprise of
+all, save those who knew him thoroughly, he made a most admirable survey
+of the sciences and their uses, at one of the last meetings held ere his
+death, of the British Association for the Advancement of Science. Of art
+he was a judicious critic, as well as a munificent patron. It was at his
+special wish and option that the _savant_ Lyon Playfair was made one of
+his Equerries; and that a residence in Hampton Court Palace was put at the
+disposal of Michael Faraday.
+
+How much of mingled love for art and artists, and at the same time of
+criticism most kindly and sagacious, is to be found in these brief
+sentences, extracted from his great speech at the Royal Academy dinner:--
+
+    An unkind word of criticism passes like a cold blast over their tender
+    shoots, and shrivels them up, checking the flow of the sap, which was
+    rising to produce, perhaps, multitudes of flowers and fruits. But
+    still criticism is absolutely necessary to the development of art,
+    and the injudicious praise of an inferior work becomes an insult to
+    superior genius. In this respect, our times are peculiarly favourable
+    when compared with those when Madonnas were painted in the seclusion
+    of convents; for we have now on the one hand the eager competition of
+    a vast array of artists of every degree of talent and skill, and on
+    the other, as judge, a great public, for the greater part wholly
+    uneducated in art, and thus led by professional writers who often
+    strive to impress the public with a great idea of their own artistic
+    knowledge, by the merciless manner in which they treat works which
+    cost those who produced them the highest efforts of mind or feeling.
+
+And again, as a companion and worthy picture--which is none the less, but
+all the more, worthy of hanging along with that we have just presented,
+that the great truth it teaches is presented with such lucid
+simplicity--take these sentences explanatory of the scope and end of such
+institutions as the British Association for the Advancement of Science,
+delivered by him as its President, at the 1859 Congress at Aberdeen:--
+
+[Sidenote: THE PRINCE'S EULOGY ON HUMBOLDT.]
+
+    If the activity of this Association ever found, or could find its
+    personification in one individual--its incarnation as it were--this
+    had been found in that distinguished and revered philosopher who has
+    been removed from amongst us in his ninetieth year, within the last
+    few months. Alexander Von Humboldt ever strove after dominion over
+    that universality of human knowledge which stands in need of
+    thoughtful government and direction to preserve its integrity. He
+    strove to tie up the fasces of scientific knowledge, to give them
+    strength in unity. He treated all scientific men as members of one
+    family, enthusiastically directing, fostering, and encouraging
+    inquiry, where he saw either the want of or the willingness for it.
+    His protection of the young and ardent student led many to success in
+    their pursuits. His personal influence with the courts and governments
+    of most countries in Europe, enabled him to plead the cause of science
+    in a manner which made it more difficult to refuse than to grant what
+    he requested. All lovers of Science deeply mourn for the loss of such
+    a man. Gentlemen, it is a singular coincidence, that this very day on
+    which we are here assembled, and are thus giving expression to our
+    admiration of him, should be the anniversary of his birth.
+
+The Queen, who was staying at Balmoral, was very anxious about the manner
+in which her husband should pass the very severe ordeal of delivering an
+address to the assembled men of science. She recorded her high
+gratification at learning by telegram that "Albert's reception was
+admirable, and that all was going off as well as possible. Thank God!" She
+invited the _savans_, to a fête at her Highland home; they accepted the
+invitation in great numbers; and "the philosophers," of whom Her Majesty
+was not a little, and rather comically, afraid, were not only entertained
+with creature comforts, but the somewhat novel combination was presented
+of Owen, Brewster, Sabine, and Murchison, with their brethren of lesser
+renown, standing as spectators of contests of strength between athletes of
+the Grant, Farquharson, Duff, and other clans. Some of the more
+distinguished guests remained over night, and at dinner they rejoiced the
+Queen's heart by "speaking in very high terms of my beloved Albert's
+speech, the good it had done, and the general satisfaction it had caused."
+
+[Sidenote: THE PRINCE AS AN AGRICULTURIST.]
+
+Probably the capacity of all others in which the Prince became most
+generally familiar to the nation, was that of a practical, improving,
+scientific agriculturist; and we use this word in its twofold sense, as
+embracing the growing of crops and the rearing of live stock. Almost from
+the outset of his career amongst us he commenced a series of scientific
+agricultural experiments on the farms in Windsor Park. He renovated the
+agriculture of the Park, as much as he confessedly did its landscape
+gardening. He became a constant and most successful exhibitor of live
+domestic edible animals at the great agricultural shows; his example in
+this field having been followed since his death, to the great
+gratification of the agricultural interest, both by his widow and his
+eldest son; and, especially in the case of Her Majesty, with marked
+success. As a high and eminent authority on the subject has admirably put
+it--
+
+    His was no merely idle, passing patronage or casual aid, but it was
+    rather a pursuit he delighted in, and one he followed out with equal
+    energy and advantage. The most practical man could not go that
+    pleasant round from the Flemish farm to the Norfolk, and so back again
+    by the Home and the Dairy, without learning something wherever he
+    went.
+
+We must deny ourselves the pleasure of aught but passing reference to the
+admirable manner in which he discharged his academic duties as Chancellor
+of the University of Cambridge, which post he held from 1845 till his
+death, and about which we say enough when we remind or inform the reader
+that it was such men as Professor Sedgwick, the Vice-chancellor, who spoke
+of the exercise of his duties in this capacity in terms of the highest
+honour and estimation. Similar were his services to such noble
+institutions as Eton and Wellington Colleges, in both of which he offered
+prizes expressly calculated to encourage the pursuit of those studies
+which had been, or were most likely to be, ignored in their several cases.
+Horticulture, art exhibitions, the National Portrait Gallery, the Society
+of Arts, societies for improving the general condition and the housing of
+the labouring classes, mechanics' institutions--each of these constitutes
+a theme most pregnant and suggestive in connection with the Prince's name
+and memory. But we can do no more than recite and dismiss the bald
+catalogue of topics. Reserving for the appropriate chronological occasion
+some brief remarks upon the character of the Prince as a private man, as
+contrasted with his aspects of character as a citizen and public
+benefactor, to which we have at present confined ourselves, we feel that
+we cannot better conclude than by condensing his opinions delivered in an
+address to the annual meeting of the Servants' Provident Benevolent
+Society, in 1849, in which the whole plan and doctrine by which he
+believed all really useful associated benevolence ought to be regulated
+was summed up. His view was that no such organisation was founded upon a
+right principle which did not require every man, by personal exertion, and
+by his own choice, to work out his own happiness. Benevolence he held to
+be not really such unless it stimulated providence, self-denial, and
+perseverance. He used special words of warning against those so frequent
+lotteries of uncertain and precarious advantages--"really a species of
+gambling"--expensive convivial meetings, balloting for prizes, and
+electioneering contests on a small scale. "Let them always bear in mind,"
+he proceeded to say, "that their savings are capital, that capital will
+only return a certain interest, and that any advantage offered beyond that
+interest has to be purchased at a commensurate risk of the capital
+itself."
+
+Such is a view, but all too summary and inadequate, of some of the
+obligations which the English, as his fellow-citizens, owed to that Prince
+whose life was so intertwined with and influential on that of their
+Sovereign.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII.
+
+FOREIGN TRAVEL AND HOME VISITS.
+
+    Visit to King Louis Philippe at Eu--A Loyal Corporation--Splendid
+    Reception of the Queen in France--Anecdote of the Queen's Regard for
+    Prince Albert--Visit of the Czar Nicholas--Home Life in
+    Scotland--Visit to Germany--Illuminations of the Rhine--A Rural Fête
+    at Coburg.
+
+
+In August, 1843, the Queen and Prince Albert made a yachting excursion
+round portions of the south coast and the Isle of Wight. Thence they
+steamed over to Treport, on the French coast, the nearest port to the
+Chateau d'Eu, a rural residence of Louis Philippe. On the arrival of the
+Queen and Prince from Windsor at Southampton, they were met at the end of
+the pier by the Duke of Wellington and other noble and official
+personages. It rained heavily, and as there was not sufficient covering
+for the stage intended to run on to the yacht _Victoria and Albert_, the
+members of the Corporation, like so many Raleighs, stripped off their red
+gowns in a moment, and the pathway was covered for Her Majesty's use, so
+that Queen Victoria, like Queen Elizabeth, walked dry-footed to her
+vessel. The undergraduates at Cambridge acted precisely similarly on the
+occasion of a visit in wet weather by the Queen and Prince to that
+university in this year.
+
+[Sidenote: VISIT TO FRANCE.]
+
+The subsequent visit to France was wholly unexpected in England; and it
+was even said, and with some show of truth, that the Ministers were
+unaware of the intention. Of course we cannot speak with any certainty,
+but it seems but too likely that Louis Philippe intrigued to secure the
+aid, or at least the condonation, of the Queen of England in those astute
+enterprises which his busy brain was even now concocting, with which the
+phrases "Pritchard and Tahiti," and the "Spanish Marriages" will ever
+remain associated, and which ultimately, and retributively, cost him his
+throne. Mr. Raikes, who, be it remembered, was the intimate and bosom
+friend of the Duke of Wellington, then a Minister of England, has at this
+date the following entry in his Journal, which was published in 1857, and
+is an acknowledged, and if not absolutely an indisputable, yet a most
+weighty authority:--
+
+    _Tuesday, 19th._--Much conversation after dinner about the Queen's
+    visit to Eu. I said, that the day before I left Paris, Kisseleff, the
+    Russian Minister, scouted the idea of this visit, and betted that it
+    would never take place. Lord Canning remarked, as a singular
+    coincidence, that Brunow, the Russian Minister in London, asserted
+    positively, on the very morning that the Queen embarked at
+    Southampton, that she had no intention of going to Eu. They both
+    spoke, I suppose, as they wished.
+
+This, it may be said, is mere club gossip. Not so what we are about to
+quote, and which was written under the Duke of Wellington's roof:--
+
+    _Saturday, 23rd._--I went down to Walmer Castle, and found the Duke
+    walking with Mr. Arbuthnot on the ramparts, or, as it is called, the
+    platform, which overlooks the sea.... After the company had departed
+    at ten o'clock, I sat up with the Duke and Arbuthnot till twelve
+    o'clock, talking on various topics.... I see that the Government was
+    evidently opposed to the Queen's visit to Eu. It was a wily intrigue,
+    managed by Louis Philippe, through the intervention of his daughter,
+    the Queen of the Belgians, during her frequent visits to Windsor with
+    King Leopold, and was hailed by him with extreme joy, as the first
+    admission of the King of the Barricades within the pale of legitimate
+    sovereigns. The Duke said, "I was never let into the secret, nor did I
+    believe the report then in circulation, till at last they sent to
+    consult my opinion as to forming a regency during the Queen's absence.
+    I immediately referred to precedents as the only proper guide. I told
+    them that George I., George II. (George III. never went abroad), and
+    George IV. had all been obliged to appoint councils of regency; that
+    Henry VIII., when he met Francis I. at Ardres, was then master of
+    Calais, as also when he met Charles V. at Gravelines; so that, in
+    these instances, Calais being a part of his dominions, he hardly did
+    more than pass his frontier--not much more than going from one county
+    to the next. Upon this I decided that the Queen could not quit this
+    country without an Act of Regency. But she consulted the crown
+    lawyers, who decided that it was not necessary, as courtiers would
+    do." I myself (resumes Raikes) did not believe in her going till two
+    days before she went. Peel persisted afterwards that he had told me of
+    it; but I knew I never heard it, and it was not a thing to have
+    escaped me if I had.
+
+As for the reception at the Château d'Eu itself, it was of the most
+splendid character. One state ceremonial, however, is so very like
+another, that after those, the descriptions of which we have already
+furnished, a recital of the gay doings at Eu would hardly be palatable.
+The purport of the whole may be summed up very briefly. The French monarch
+endeavoured to allure the Queen into compliance with his wishes, by every
+seduction which nature and art, and the most refined and gallant courtesy,
+could supply. Everything that wealth, luxury, and taste could furnish was
+to be found amid scenes of more than royal magnificence, o'ershadowed by
+elms that dated back to the times of Henri Quatre.
+
+But there was business to be done, and the Queen was fortunate in having
+with her such trusty counsellors as Lords Aberdeen and Liverpool. A
+compact about the Spanish marriages was then and there made between France
+and England; a compact for the terms of which we are dependent, not alone
+upon English state papers, but upon the unimpeachable testimony of MM.
+Guizot and Regnault. As the starting-point of the one court was that the
+Queen of Spain should marry a Prince of the House of Coburg, and of the
+other that she should marry a Prince of the reigning French house, of
+course no settlement could be come to except by an unequivocal compromise.
+Thus did Lord Aberdeen and M. Guizot arrange it:--The King of France
+renounced all pretensions, on the part of any of his sons, to the hand of
+the Queen of Spain. It was stipulated that the Queen should choose her
+husband from the princely descendants of Philip V.; this stipulation
+excluding the dreaded competition of a Coburg. As to the projected
+marriage of the Duc de Montpensier, the son of Louis Philippe, with the
+Infanta Donna Maria, sister of the Queen of Spain, Louis Philippe agreed
+that it should not take place "till the Queen was married and had had
+children." On these conditions, the Queen of England and her counsellors
+waived all objections to the marriage of the Duc de Montpensier. Louis
+Philippe kept his word by having his son married to the Infanta on the
+very same day, and at the same altar, as that on which her elder sister
+the Queen was married.
+
+In the summer of this year, the Princess Augusta of Cambridge, the Queen's
+first cousin, was married to the Grand Duke of Mecklenburg-Strelitz. The
+following extract from the diary of Mr. Raikes will be admitted to be far
+from the least amusing and characteristic anecdote of the Queen which we
+present in these pages:--
+
+    _Tuesday, 26th September._--This morning at breakfast, the Duke said
+    to me, "Did you hear what happened at the wedding?" [meaning that of
+    the Princess Augusta of Cambridge]. Replying in the negative, he
+    continued, "When we proceeded to the signatures, the King of Hanover
+    was very anxious to sign before Prince Albert, and when the Queen
+    approached the table, he placed himself by her side, watching his
+    opportunity. She knew very well what he was about, and just as the
+    Archbishop was giving her the pen, she suddenly dodged around the
+    table, placed herself next to the Prince, then quickly took the pen
+    from the Archbishop, signed and gave it to Prince Albert, who also
+    signed next, before it could be prevented. The Queen was also very
+    anxious to give the precedence at Court to King Leopold before the
+    King of Hanover, and she consulted me about it, and how it should be
+    arranged. I told Her Majesty that I supposed it should be settled as
+    we did at the congress of Vienna. "How was that," said she, "by first
+    arrival?" "No ma'am," said I, "alphabetically, and then, you know, B
+    comes before H." This pleased her very much, and it was done.
+
+[Sidenote: THE CZAR NICHOLAS.]
+
+In June, 1844, the Queen was visited by her handsome and colossal
+godfather, the Czar Nicholas of All the Russias. The Queen received him
+with great magnificence, and there was a splendid series of entertainments
+at Windsor. The Czar made himself immensely popular with the female sex,
+by his magnificent gifts of jewels to the ladies of the Court; with the
+sterner sex, by the gift of a cup of uncommon splendour, to be annually
+run for at Ascot. "Every one who approached him," says Sir Archibald
+Alison, "was struck by the manly dignity of his figure, his noble and
+serene countenance, and the polished courtesy of his manner, which threw a
+lustre even over the stately halls of Windsor."
+
+In September of the same year the Queen renewed her acquaintance with
+Scotland and the Scots; this time again enjoying the ducal hospitality of
+Blair Athole. This visit was entirely dissociated from all State
+paraphernalia. The Queen was up before the sun. The mists were hardly
+cleared away ere she and the Prince were to be seen walking in the
+grounds. They were generally accompanied by the Princess Royal, mounted on
+a Shetland pony. The Queen's piper played under her bed-room window at
+dawn, and every morning a bunch of heather, with some icy-cold water from
+the celebrated spring in Glen Tilt, was laid on her dressing-table. One
+morning a lady, plainly dressed, left the Castle; who, though observed by
+the Highland guard on duty, was allowed to pass unnoticed, until after she
+had proceeded a considerable distance. But somebody having discovered that
+it was the Queen, a party of Highlanders turned out as a royal body-guard.
+She, however, signified her wish to dispense with their services, and they
+all returned to their stations. The Queen, meanwhile, moved onward through
+the Castle grounds alone, until she reached the lodge, the temporary
+residence of Lord and Lady Glenlyon, where, upon calling, with the
+intention, it was understood, of making some arrangements as to a
+preconcerted excursion to the Falls of Bruar, she was informed that his
+lordship had not yet arisen. The surprise of the servant may be conceived
+when Her Majesty announced who was to be intimated as having called upon
+his lordship. On her return, having taken a different route, and finding
+herself bewildered by the various roads which intersect the grounds in
+every direction, she asked some reapers to direct her to the Castle by the
+nearest way. They, not being aware to whom they spoke, immediately did so,
+by directing her to go through one of the parks, and across a paling which
+lay before her, and which she at once passed, and reached the Castle, a
+good deal amused, doubtless, with her morning's excursion. In 1847 the
+Queen visited, for the first time, the Western Isles and Hebrides. In 1848
+she rented Balmoral, which she shortly afterwards purchased, and from the
+date of its acquisition it has been her place of regular resort for at
+least one period of every year.
+
+On the 9th of August, 1845, the Queen and Prince Albert embarked at
+Woolwich to visit the land of her maternity and his natal spot. In the
+Belgian and Prussian territories, and in the Duchy of Coburg itself, they
+were rapturously welcomed. At Bonn, they were serenaded by a monster
+orchestra, consisting of no fewer than sixty military bands. At the same
+city they assisted at the inauguration of the statue of Beethoven. The
+same evening they witnessed at Cologne an illumination and pyrotechnic
+display which turned the Rhine into a _feu-de-joie_. As darkness closed
+in, the dim and fetid city began to put forth buds of light; lines of
+twinkling brightness darted, like liquid gold and silver, from pile to
+pile, then along the famous bridge of boats, across the river, up the
+masts of the shipping, and all abroad on the opposite bank. Rockets now
+shot from all parts of the horizon. The royal party embarked in a steamer
+at St. Tremond, and glided down the river; as they passed, the banks
+blazed with fireworks and musketry. At their approach they glared with
+redoubled light; and, being suspended, let the vessel pass to Cologne,
+whose cathedral burst forth a building of light, every detail of the
+architecture being made out in delicately coloured lamps--pinkish, with an
+underglow of orange. A few days afterwards the Queen steamed up the Rhine.
+At Stoltzenfelz there was another magnificent illumination and display of
+fireworks. The whole river, both its banks, its crags, ravines, and ruins,
+were simultaneously lighted up; showers of rockets and other fireworks
+besprinkled the firmament, while repeated salvoes of artillery called the
+grandeur of resonant sound to the aid of visible beauty.
+
+[Sidenote: VISIT TO COBURG.]
+
+At Coburg the Queen, as might be supposed, was still more cordially
+welcomed than at any of her previous stopping places. She and the Prince
+stopped at the Castle of Rosenau, and they occupied the room in which he
+had been born. A magnificent stag-hunt was got up for their entertainment;
+but what pleased the Queen most was being present at a festival entitled
+"The Feast of Gregorius." This was a species of carnival, in which the
+burghers and rustics, their wives and children, disguised in masks,
+indulged in innocent and exuberant gaiety. The Queen and her relatives
+freely mixed with the revellers. She talked to the children, to their
+great astonishment, "in their own language." Tired of dancing and
+processions, and freed from all awe by the ease of their illustrious
+visitors, the children took to romps, "thread-my-needle," and other
+pastimes, and finally were well pelted by the royal circle with bon-bons,
+flowers, and cakes.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII.
+
+THE QUEEN IN IRELAND.
+
+    First Visit to Ireland--Rapturous Reception at Cork--Queenstown so
+    Denominated--Enthusiasm at Dublin--Its Graceful Recognition by the
+    Queen--Visit to the Dublin Exhibition--Encouragement of Native
+    Industry--Visit to the Lakes of Killarney--The Whirligig of Time.
+
+
+For twelve years after her accession to the throne, the Queen was a
+personal stranger to the shores of Erin. Amongst the numerous fruits of
+the tranquillity restored to Ireland, after the disturbances and sedition
+which had culminated in the "Young Ireland" rising of 1848, was a visit
+paid by the Queen to her subjects on the west of St. George's Channel in
+the autumn of 1849. Immediately after the prorogation of Parliament, the
+Queen and Prince Albert proceeded to Cowes, where a Royal squadron was
+ready to receive them. Under its escort, and being accompanied by their
+two eldest children, they steered for Cork. The Queen selected as the
+first spot of Irish ground on which to land, the port which, up to the
+date of her disembarkation, had been known as the Cove of Cork. She gave a
+command that, in commemoration of the circumstance, the Cove should
+thenceforth be designated Queenstown. Having re-embarked, the Royal party
+steamed up the beautiful bay to the city of Cork itself, where a
+magnificent reception awaited them. The squadron proceeded at a slow
+rate. In spite of its arrival at a much earlier date than had been
+anticipated, the news spread like wildfire, and the country people
+assembled in prodigious numbers on the shores of the Cove, which were
+crowded with multitudes of excited Celts, whose wild shouts, mingled with
+the firing of cannon and small arms, and the ringing of bells, made the
+whole scene animated beyond description. From Cork, the Queen proceeded to
+Dublin. There her reception was described by an eye-witness as "a sight
+never to be forgotten."
+
+[Sidenote: FIRST VISIT TO IRELAND.]
+
+The Queen, turning from side to side, bowed low repeatedly. Prince Albert
+shared in and acknowledged the plaudits of the people; while the Royal
+children were objects of universal attention and admiration. Her Majesty
+seemed to feel deeply the warmth of her reception. She paused at the end
+of the platform for a moment, and again making her acknowledgments, was
+hailed with a tremendous cheer as she entered the terminus of the short
+railway line which connects Kingston with Dublin. On her departure, a few
+days later, an incident still more gratifying to the Irish people
+occurred. As the Royal yacht approached the extremity of the pier near the
+lighthouse, where the people were most thickly congregated, and who were
+cheering enthusiastically, the Queen suddenly left the two
+Ladies-in-waiting with whom she was conversing, ran with agility along the
+deck, and climbed the paddle-box to join Prince Albert, who did not notice
+her till she was nearly at his side. Reaching out to him, and taking his
+arm, she waved her hand to the people on the piers. She appeared to give
+some order to the captain: the paddles immediately ceased to move, and
+the vessel merely floated on. The Royal Standard was lowered in courtesy
+to the thousands cheering on shore, and this stately obeisance was
+repeated five times.
+
+This gracious and well-timed visit to Ireland was a very significant proof
+of the Royal confidence in the unshaken allegiance of the bulk of the
+Irish people; and it likewise showed a just appreciation of the prudent
+energy and humane moderation with which her Ministers had so fortunately
+composed the recent unhappy tumults. Nearly thirty years had elapsed since
+a British sovereign had appeared in Ireland; and between the visit of
+George IV. and that of Queen Victoria, there was in common only the
+circumstance that both were royal visits. George, as King of Ireland, in
+1821, was not the king of a free nation; the victory of civil and
+religious liberty had yet to be achieved for and by the Irish; a minority
+engrossed the national Government and monopolised its emoluments of every
+degree; the very existence of the people as a people had not been
+recognised, and the King himself was peculiarly and bitterly identified
+with the faction which held the race and their creed in thraldom. Thus, in
+1821, the Crown of England possessed for Ireland little lustre or utility,
+nor did it evoke any well-grounded loyalty and devotion from its people.
+
+Queen Victoria and her visit, on the contrary, represented those popular
+principles and sympathies which are the brightest jewels of the British
+Crown, and are now set firmly in it for ever. Her visit, at once august
+and affectionate, was a visit to a nation which was not only loyal but
+free. "And joy came well in such, a needful time." The joy was exuberant
+and universal. As the loyalty was rendered to a young Queen, it partook of
+the romantic and strictly national nature of gallantry. To witness that
+joy must have been the fittest punishment for the disaffected.
+
+"We do not remember," says an authority not given to rhapsody or
+exaggeration, "in the chronicles of royal progresses, to have met with any
+description of a scene more splendid, more imposing, more joyous, or more
+memorable, than the entry of the Queen into the Irish capital." The houses
+were absolutely roofed and walled with spectators. They were piled throng
+above throng, till their occupants clustered like bees about the vanes and
+chimney tops. The noble streets of Dublin seemed to have been removed, and
+built anew of Her Majesty's lieges. The squares resembled the interiors of
+crowded amphitheatres. Facades of public buildings were formed for the day
+of radiant human faces. Invention exhausted itself in preparing the
+language of greeting, and the symbols of welcome. For miles the chariot of
+the gay and gratified Sovereign passed under parti-coloured (not
+_party_-coloured) streamers, waving banners, festal garlands, and
+triumphal arches. The latter seemed constructed of nothing else than solid
+flowers, as if the hands of Flora herself had reared them. At every
+appropriate point jocund music sent forth strains of congratulation; but
+banners, flowers, arches, and music were all excelled by the jubilant
+shouts which tore the empyrean, loud, clear, and resonant, not only above
+drum and trumpet, but above even the saluting thunders of the fleet.
+
+[Sidenote: VISIT TO AN IRISH NATIONAL SCHOOL.]
+
+Perhaps, apart from the mere loyal enthusiasm of the occasion, the most
+important and significant incident of the visit was the following. It did
+not fail to be remarked that the first institution which Her Majesty
+visited in the capital was the central establishment of the Irish National
+Schools--the first-fruits of Irish liberty, and the noblest possession of
+the Irish people. The Queen knew that in these excellent schools the youth
+of all persuasions were trained together, not in the love and pursuit of
+knowledge alone, but in the habit of tolerance and the spirit of charity.
+The Queen, by this visit, passed her personal approval and sanction upon a
+system which is equally the antithesis of sectarian discord and the
+promoter of religious independence. Here, also, she discovered (or already
+knew, as was much more likely) that there was imparted the most useful,
+solid, and practical instruction, one of a character most precisely
+adapted to the wants, pursuits, interests, and occupations of the classes
+in whose behalf it was devised. In her survey and inspection of the Normal
+Schools, the Queen was attended by the Protestant and the Romanist
+Archbishops, and the representatives of other Christian denominations,
+friendly to the great scheme, stood beside and around her. That quite as
+much importance and significance as we have accorded to it was assigned to
+this visit of the Queen to the Normal National Schools, sufficiently
+appears from these closing sentences of the Report of the Irish Education
+Commissioners for 1849:--
+
+    We cannot conclude our Report for 1849 without alluding with pride and
+    gratitude to the visit with which our Model Schools were honoured on
+    the 7th of August, by Her Majesty Queen Victoria, and by her Royal
+    Consort, Prince Albert, accompanied by your Excellency. We are
+    convinced that this visit, so promptly and cordially made, has left an
+    indelible impression upon the hearts of the poor of Ireland, for whose
+    benefit our system has been established; and that they will ever
+    regard the compliment as the most appropriate and decisive that could
+    have been paid by Her Majesty to themselves. All reflecting men,
+    whether friends or opponents of our institution, have not failed to
+    see the importance of the step. By the country at large it has been
+    hailed as an eminent proof of Her Majesty's wisdom and goodness, and
+    as peculiarly worthy of the daughter of that illustrious Prince who
+    was the ardent advocate of the education of the poor, when denounced
+    by many as a dangerous novelty; and of their united education on just
+    and comprehensive principles, when most men regarded it as
+    impracticable.
+
+[Sidenote: VISIT TO THE LAKES OF KILLARNEY.]
+
+Four years later, when the first International Exhibition was held at
+Dublin, the Queen renewed her acquaintance with her Irish subjects. Making
+a somewhat lengthened stay at the vice-regal residence, she charmed the
+people by the freedom with which she mingled amongst them, and by the
+special attention and the bounteous patronage which she bestowed upon the
+little-developed but beautiful specimens of their indigenous textile
+industries in the Exhibition building. A third and a much more prolonged
+visit was made in the autumn of 1861, the Queen having honoured Lord
+Castlerosse and Mr. Herbert of Muckross, two gentlemen whose seats and
+demesnes are situate on the shores of the beauteous Lakes of Killarney, by
+accepting their hospitable invitations. Over the lakes, their islets, and
+their surrounding mountains and mountain passes, the Queen roved as freely
+and unrestrainedly as was her wont in the retreats in which she had year
+after year sojourned, after the turmoil of the London season, in the
+Scottish Highlands. It was observed with pleasure that, amongst other
+indications of change which the whirligig of time had brought round, Mr.
+James O'Connell, the brother of the "Liberator," dined more than once with
+Her Majesty at the tables of her noble and gentle hosts; and the hounds
+that forced a stag to take to the Lake--one of the immemorial sports
+associated with Killarney--formed a portion of the pack which belonged to
+his two sons.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX.
+
+THE WORLD'S CONGRESS OF INDUSTRY.
+
+    Prince Albert the Inaugurator of International Exhibitions--Proposes,
+    Unsuccessfully, his Scheme to the Government--To the Society of Arts,
+    Successfully--First Steps towards Realisation--Objections to be
+    Met--Perseverance of the Prince--The Royal Commission--The Prince's
+    Speech at York--The Opening Ceremony--The Royal Procession.
+
+
+As early as 1848 Prince Albert submitted to the Government a proposal to
+establish an exhibition of works of industry in this country; but the
+members of the Government could not be induced to afford to it any of that
+encouragement which it was sought to obtain. Despairing of acquiring
+assistance in this quarter, but hopeful, courageous, and unbaffled, the
+Prince, who was President of the Society of Arts, in the following year
+betook himself to that more likely and congenial quarter. Not content,
+however, with following in the wake of previous Expositions which had been
+held in Paris and elsewhere, he suggested the happy idea of so extending
+its range as to include within it the works of industry and the art
+treasures of all lands. He convened on his own responsibility a meeting at
+Buckingham Palace, on the 30th of June, 1849, where he proposed that the
+Exhibition should be divided into four sections: the first being raw
+materials and produce illustrative of the natural productions in which
+human industry is employed; the second, machinery for agricultural,
+manufacturing, engineering, and other purposes, and mechanical inventions
+illustrative of the agents which human ingenuity brings to bear upon the
+products of nature; the third, manufactures illustrative of the results
+produced by the operation of human industry upon natural produce; the
+fourth, sculpture, models, and the plastic arts generally, illustrative of
+the skill displayed in such applications of human industry.
+
+When this proposal of a display so novel was first made, there existed no
+public enthusiasm to welcome the daring scheme, and all were in utter
+ignorance of those mechanical means of accomplishing it which to the
+present generation are so simple and obvious. It was met by countless
+cavils and objections without end. But the Prince had insight enough to
+discriminate between the real body of public opinion, lethargic and slow
+to move, yet ductile and malleable, and the artificial clamour of the
+marplots. Fortunately for the success of the great enterprise, the Prince
+possessed within himself the happiest combination of the highest station
+with those indomitable qualities of hopeful perseverance which were
+necessary to overcome the innumerable impediments which threatened more
+than once to mar the success of the great work. He succeeded in getting
+associated with him an active body of Commissioners, who, encouraged by
+the untiring industry which their illustrious President displayed,
+persevered in their work; and one by one the practical difficulties
+disappeared before the clear and vigorous intellect which the Prince
+brought to bear upon their discussions.
+
+[Sidenote: THE GREAT EXHIBITION.]
+
+But he remained, indeed, the _facile princeps_ in maturing, as he had been
+in designing, the scheme. This is no mere language of eulogy, for the
+records of the Commissioners of the Exhibition have placed in print
+undoubted proofs that equally the completion with the progress, and the
+progress quite as much as the origin, of the Exhibition of 1851, were
+mainly due to the large conception and wise foresight of the Prince
+Consort. The public at the time knew but little, and many of its
+constituent atoms know but little to this day, of the amount of anxious
+thought and labour which he devoted to the success of the great
+undertaking that made the year 1851 memorable as a new starting-point in
+the industrial and social history of the world. One important point, apart
+altogether from his personal merits, must never be lost sight of. His own
+high name and his close relation to the Sovereign, added a lustre to the
+Royal Commission which would otherwise have been totally lacking, and gave
+ground for that confidence to foreign powers which they displayed so
+signally and with so little stint.
+
+[Sidenote: PRINCE ALBERT AT YORK.]
+
+At a banquet held at York about six months before the Exhibition opened,
+the Prince in a long address, in which he replied to the toast of his
+health, indicated, though most modestly and unconsciously, at once the
+arduous nature of his preliminary labours and the zeal with which he
+pursued them. In the name of the Commissioners, who had been invited to
+the banquet _en masse_, he thanked his hosts for the proof thereby made
+plain of their earnest and combined zeal in the cause of the approaching
+Exhibition. He rejoiced that it was not a mere impulse of momentary
+enthusiasm which they evinced, but a spirit of steady perseverance and
+sustained effort, and he assured his auditors that the spirit of active
+preparation and hopeful faith was abroad in the country. Of this, he said,
+he was confident, on the ground of information which reached him from all
+quarters. And he added, and the event proved him to be right, his own
+personal conviction that the works in preparation would be such as to
+dispel any apprehension about the position which British industry would
+maintain. Of his brother Commissioners he spoke with loyal and chivalrous
+fervour. He thanked, in their name, the public for their uninterrupted
+confidence in those who were responsible for the management of the scheme;
+and stated that there had been no difference of opinion between the
+central and the local committees, which had not, upon personal
+consultation and open discussion vanished, and given way to agreement and
+identity of purpose. So much for hope: the test of fruition had yet to
+come.
+
+At length the great event to which the whole civilised world had been
+looking forward for eighteen months with mingled interest and
+curiosity--the opening of the great congress of industry and art--was
+accomplished with a pomp and solemnity of ceremonial suitable to the
+dignity of the occasion, and the important social interests which it
+involved. Spite of all predictions to the contrary--spite of the
+faint-hearted forebodings which the wild confusion of the interior of the
+building in the last days of April excused, if it did not justify--the
+building was ready and furnished with the world's wares at the appointed
+time. At two o'clock on the last day of April the building was cleared by
+police and guardsmen of all exhibitors and their assistants, and the
+preparations for the opening day, already partially made, were pursued
+with the utmost zeal and vigour.
+
+Never dawned a brighter morning than that of the May Day which succeeded.
+The sky was clear and blue, the air as cool, crisp, and genial as a poet
+or artist could wish, and the sun came forth in undimmed splendour.
+London, reinforced by a multitude of visitors, was early astir and afoot.
+At six the Park gates were opened, and through them at once commenced to
+pour carriages from all parts of the metropolis and its neighbourhood,
+filled with gaily attired courtiers, cits, and provincials. The line of
+route was kept by mounted soldiers and police; but their task was rendered
+almost perfunctory, so fully did all appear animated with the one desire
+to signalise this truly popular ceremonial with generous and kindly
+feeling, and a respect for the rights and duties of one another. The only
+houses from which a sight could be got of the royal procession were those
+at Grosvenor Gate and at Hyde Park Corner. These were crowded with
+well-dressed persons, of whom ladies formed the majority, up to the very
+roofs. The roofs of Apsley House and the park-keeper's lodge were
+similarly tenanted. The windows of Buckingham Palace, which had recently
+been new fronted, were filled with eager spectators, chiefly members of
+the Household, their relatives and friends. The centre balcony was
+occupied by the younger princes and princesses, attended by several
+ladies.
+
+Precisely at eleven the Life Guards commenced to widen the path for the
+procession. At half-past eleven, the band of the regiment playing "God
+save the Queen," the royal cortège set forth, amid the cheers of the vast
+assembled multitude. The procession was of anything but an ostentatious
+character. The eight carriages of which it was composed were drawn by but
+two horses each. There were no Gentlemen-Ushers, Grooms, or Yeomen of the
+Guard. Trumpeters there were, but their trumpets were silent. At a quarter
+to twelve the procession reached the northern entrance of the Palace, and
+the Queen alighted amid the strains of the National Anthem, a salvo of
+artillery, and the lusty cheers of enormous multitudes on both sides of
+the Serpentine.
+
+[Sidenote: OPENING OF THE EXHIBITION.]
+
+Meanwhile, from nine o'clock, the appointed hour of opening, the building
+had been rapidly filling, all the visitors being remarkably well dressed,
+and a large majority of them ladies. "The first _coup d'oeil_ of the
+building, on entering the nave, was grand and gorgeous in the extreme; the
+vast dimensions of the structure, the breadth of light, partially subdued
+and agreeably mellowed in the nave by the calico coverings placed over the
+roof, whilst the arched transept soared boldly into the clear arch of
+heaven, courting, admitting, and distributing the full effulgence of the
+noon-day sun; the bright and striking colours and forms of the several
+articles in rich manufactured goods, works in sculpture, and other objects
+displayed by the exhibitors, dissimilar and almost incongruous in their
+variety, were blent into an harmonious picture of immense grandeur by the
+attendant circumstances of space and light to which we have just alluded;
+and the busy hum and eager and excited movements of the assembled
+thousands infused the breath of life into a picture, which, at the period
+of the crowning incident of the day, became truly sublime."
+
+By eleven o'clock, after which hour none of the general public could be
+admitted, the Honourable Corps of Gentlemen-at-Arms, in their gay
+uniforms, had taken up their places in the rear of the dais set for the
+Queen. This dais was covered with a splendid carpet, which had been
+specially worked for the occasion by 150 ladies, and on this was placed a
+magnificent chair of state, covered with a cloth of crimson and gold. High
+over head was suspended an octagon canopy, trimmed with blue satin, and
+draperies of blue and white. The trumpeters and heralds were in readiness
+to proclaim the arrival of the Queen, and Sir George Smart stood, baton in
+hand, perched up in a small rostrum, "ready to beat time to 'God save the
+Queen' for the five hundredth time in his life." The Commissioners of the
+Exhibition and the foreign ambassadors stood in the entrance hall,
+prepared to pay their respects to Her Majesty on her arrival. The Queen
+entered, leaning on her husband's arm, and being also accompanied by the
+Princess Royal and Prince of Wales. The Queen wore a dress of pink satin,
+brocaded with gold; Prince Albert a Field-Marshal's uniform; the Prince of
+Wales was in a Highland dress, while the Princess was clad in white satin,
+with a wreath of flowers round her head. A tremendous burst of cheering,
+renewed and prolonged from all parts of the building, greeted the
+announcement of the arrival of the Queen.
+
+[Sidenote: THE ADDRESS OF THE PRINCE.]
+
+Her Majesty was conducted to her chair of state by the Commissioners,
+Cabinet, and Foreign Ministers. As they stood around her chair, in their
+bright Court dresses and brilliant uniforms, a choir of nearly a thousand
+voices sang "God save the Queen." At the conclusion of its last strain,
+Prince Albert descended from the dais, and taking his place with his
+brother Commissioners, read a long address to Her Majesty, in which he
+recited the history, plan, and intent of the magnificent and magnanimous
+scheme which was so largely the product of his own heart and brain. These
+and other less important particulars having been enumerated, the Prince
+thus concluded:--
+
+    It affords us much gratification that, notwithstanding the magnitude
+    of this undertaking, and the great distances from which many of the
+    articles now exhibited have had to be collected, the day on which your
+    Majesty has graciously pleased to be present at the inauguration of
+    the Exhibition is the same day that was originally named for its
+    opening, thus affording a proof of what may, under God's blessing, be
+    accomplished by good-will and cordial co-operation amongst nations,
+    aided by the means which modern science has placed at our command.
+
+    Having thus briefly laid before your Majesty the results of our
+    labours, it now only remains for us to convey to your Majesty our
+    dutiful and loyal acknowledgments of the support and encouragement
+    which we have derived throughout this extensive and laborious task
+    from the gracious favour and countenance of your Majesty. It is our
+    heartfelt prayer that this undertaking, which has for its end the
+    promotion of all branches of human industry, and the strengthening of
+    the bonds of peace and friendship among all the nations of the earth,
+    may, by the blessing of Divine Providence, conduce to the welfare of
+    your Majesty's people, and be long remembered among the brightest
+    circumstances of your Majesty's peaceful and happy reign.
+
+The Queen read a short reply, the tenor of which was warmly to re-echo the
+hopes and sentiments contained in the address of the Prince. The
+Archbishop of Canterbury then offered up a consecratory prayer, which was
+followed by the performance of the "Hallelujah Chorus," under the
+direction of Sir Henry Bishop. A very long procession, in which the Queen
+went hand in hand with her son, and Prince Albert with his daughter, was
+then marshalled, and having marched round the interior of the building, it
+was declared formally opened.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XX.
+
+THE WAR CLOUD.
+
+    Bright Hopes of Peace Dispelled--An Era of War all over the World--The
+    Russian War--The Queen's Visits to the Wounded Soldiers--Presentation
+    of the War Medals--Crimean Heroes--The Volunteer Movement.
+
+
+Fair and peaceful to all seeming were the prospects of humanity and the
+world when the doors of the Hyde Park Exhibition were closed for the last
+time, and while its materials were being removed to be erected in more
+than their pristine beauty on the summit of one of the finest heights
+which environ the sloping basin on which the British metropolis is built.
+But a cloud, it might be no bigger than a man's hand, but pregnant with
+ill, was on the horizon. The Exhibition closed a long era of peace in
+Europe and the world, an era which had been marred, so far as we were
+concerned, only by wars in our most distant Oriental dependencies; and, so
+far as the Continent was concerned, only by the aggressions of the
+potentates who constituted the Holy Alliance, by the revolutionary
+movements of 1848, and their sanguinary repression in the year following.
+Against the hopes of all, and the belief of most, good men and women, the
+Exhibition inaugurated one of the most martial terms of time which have
+formed a part of purely modern history. A year had hardly gone by ere
+Napoleon effected his _coup d'état_, that fertile source of future
+evils--evils which are by no means yet exhausted. Then came the Russian
+War, which cost us in England a hundred thousand lives and at least a
+hundred millions of pounds. We had hardly celebrated, and rejoiced over,
+and illuminated our dwellings and public buildings in celebration of, the
+Peace of Paris, ere in India we had to put forth the utmost might of our
+imperial power to vindicate our "Raj" over Moslem and Hindoo, and to
+avenge the foul deeds done at Cawnpore. When Prince Albert was, in the
+mystery of providential rule, stricken down in his prime, Italy and
+Austria were just beginning to recover from the effects of the contests
+waged between trained troops at the Voltorno and by the Garibaldian
+guerillas in the Valteline. The first message which was conveyed by the
+new-laid Atlantic cable was a message of good-will from the grand-daughter
+of George III. to him who sat in the seat of the rebel Washington. The
+first experimental cable had hardly been destroyed by the potency of old
+ocean, churlish and jealous of the invasion of his domain, ere that great
+contest broke out across the Atlantic, which brought about the abolition
+of slavery throughout the United States. Hardly had our young Prince
+brought home his bonny bride ere the subjects who owed her father
+allegiance were called upon to hold their own against the mighty force
+wielded by a power, of which the queenly diadem must ere long be worn by
+England's dear and best-beloved daughter. The Danish War was hardly
+concluded ere the aggressor, returning victorious from his northern
+confines, turned his face to the south, and inflicted a catastrophe quite
+as telling and decisive upon that ancient dynasty, which has been more
+frequently allied with England in the great martial embroglios of the
+past than any other power of Europe.
+
+[Sidenote: AN ERA OF WAR.]
+
+We have said that Napoleon's _coup d'état_ of December, 1852, sounded the
+tocsin of that period of war which has lasted without sensible
+intermission from then until now. With that _coup d'état_ Victoria found
+herself by an accident somewhat closely allied. Some time after the close
+of the parliamentary session of 1851, all England was startled by the
+sudden announcement of the resignation by Lord Palmerston of the seals of
+the Foreign Office, which he held in the first Administration of Lord John
+Russell. On the meeting of Parliament in 1852, questions were at once
+addressed to the Treasury Benches in both Houses soliciting explanations
+of the circumstances. In the Lower House the querist was Sir Benjamin
+Hawes. Lord John Russell declared his perfect readiness to answer the
+question which had been put to him by Sir Benjamin Hawes, though he said
+he could not do so without entering into some details. These "details"
+were in the main as follows:--He commenced with a full and frank
+acknowledgment of the energy, the ability, and the extensive knowledge of
+the interests of England in all parts of the world which preeminently
+distinguished Lord Palmerston, and said that he the more regretted, on
+that account, that circumstances had occurred which prevented his acting
+any longer with him as a colleague. He laid down at starting what he
+conceived to be the correct doctrine as to the position which a Secretary
+of State holds as regards the Crown in the administration of foreign
+affairs. He held that when the Crown, in consequence of a vote of the
+House of Commons, places its constitutional confidence in a minister,
+that minister is, on the other hand, bound to afford the Crown its full
+liberty--a liberty which the Crown must possess--of saying that the
+minister no longer possesses its confidence. This was the general
+doctrine; but it so happened that with regard to Lord Palmerston
+individually, the precise terms were laid down, in 1850, in a
+communication on the part of Her Majesty with respect to the transaction
+of business between the Crown and the Foreign Secretary. Lord John said he
+had been the organ of that communication, and therefore assumed its
+responsibility. Its chief passage thus ran:--
+
+    The Queen requires, first, that Lord Palmerston will distinctly state
+    what he proposes in a given case, in order that the Queen may know as
+    distinctly to what she is giving her Royal sanction. Secondly, having
+    once given her sanction to a measure, that it be not arbitrarily
+    altered or modified by the Minister. Such an act she must consider as
+    failing in sincerity towards the Crown, and justly to be visited by
+    the exercise of her constitutional right of dismissing that Minister.
+    She expects to be kept informed of what passes between him and the
+    Foreign Ministers, before important decisions are taken based upon
+    that intercourse; to receive the foreign despatches in good time, and
+    to have the drafts for her approval sent to her in sufficient time to
+    make herself acquainted with their contents before they must be sent
+    off. The Queen thinks it best that Lord John Russell should show this
+    letter to Lord Palmerston.
+
+[Sidenote: DISMISSAL OF LORD PALMERSTON.]
+
+Lord John went on to say that, in his view, Lord Palmerston had violated
+this explicit understanding, at least in two instances--one of a
+comparatively trifling, but the other of a most important character--since
+the conclusion of the session of the year previous (1851). The former had
+reference to some incautious remarks which were said to have fallen from
+the lips of the Foreign Secretary on the occasion of receiving a
+deputation of sympathisers with Hungary. The other related to Napoleon's
+_coup d'état_ of the 2nd of December previous. The instructions given to
+our Ambassador at Paris by the Queen's Government were to abstain from all
+interference with the internal affairs of France. Lord John had been
+informed of an alleged conversation between Lord Palmerston and the French
+Minister in London, the tenor of which was repugnant to those
+instructions. He had therefore at once written to him, but his
+communication had been treated with disdainful silence. Meanwhile Lord
+Palmerston, without the knowledge of his colleagues, wrote a despatch to
+Lord Normanby, our Minister at Paris, in which, however, he evaded the
+question whether he approved the act of the President. He considered
+altogether that Lord Palmerston had put himself in the place and assumed
+the prerogative of the Crown; that he had "passed by" the Crown, while he
+gave the moral approbation of England to the acts of Louis Napoleon, in
+direct opposition to the policy which the Government had hitherto pursued.
+Under these circumstances, he had no alternative but to declare that,
+while he was Prime Minister, Lord Palmerston could not hold the seals of
+office; for he had "forgotten and neglected what was due to the Crown and
+his colleagues."
+
+[Sidenote: THE WAR IN THE CRIMEA.]
+
+On the 27th of March, 1854, the following message from the Crown was read
+to the Peers by the Lord Chancellor. It explains itself. Nor is it
+necessary for us to re-write here a single line of one of the brightest
+and freshest pages of the recent history of England. We had long been
+"drifting into war," to use Lord Clarendon's memorable phrase, and at
+last the die was irrevocably, though reluctantly, cast.
+
+    VICTORIA R.
+
+    Her Majesty thinks it proper to acquaint the House that the
+    negotiations in which Her Majesty, in concert with her allies, has for
+    some time past been engaged with His Majesty the Emperor of All the
+    Russias, have terminated, and that Her Majesty feels bound to afford
+    active assistance to her ally the Sultan against unprovoked
+    aggression.
+
+    Her Majesty has given directions for laying before the House copies of
+    such papers, in addition to those already communicated to Parliament,
+    as will afford the fullest information with regard to the subject of
+    these negotiations. It is a consolation to reflect that no endeavours
+    have been wanting on her part to preserve to her subjects the
+    blessings of peace.
+
+    Her Majesty's just expectations have been disappointed, and Her
+    Majesty relies with confidence on the zeal and devotion of the House
+    of Lords, and the exertions of her brave and loyal subjects to support
+    her in her determination to employ the power and resources of the
+    nation for protecting the dominions of the Sultan against the
+    encroachments of Russia.
+
+Alma, Balaklava, and Inkerman had been fought and won, and the horrid
+winter in the trenches had not yet passed away. These days and nights of
+constant fighting had left us many fell remembrances of their grievous
+coming and going. The Eastern hospitals, at Scutari and within the lines
+of our camp, were choke-full of the wounded. Some few who could bear the
+pain of transit were brought home, and no one in England was more
+solicitous of their welfare and wise and kindly tending than England's
+Queen. Her visits to the hospitals were as welcome as they were frequent.
+
+On the 8th of March, 1855, the Queen, accompanied by Prince Albert, and by
+the Duke of Cambridge, the Prince of Wales, and Prince Alfred, visited the
+military hospitals at Fort Pitt and Brompton, Chatham. Fort Pitt was then
+the only general military hospital in England. As this hospital and that
+of Brompton contained together only 361 patients, it could not be
+considered that the royal visit was elicited by the peculiar calamities of
+the place. But the immense extent of the hospitals in the East, and the
+sufferings of the poor wounded soldiers lying within these vast
+lazar-houses, had raised in the breast of all England a feeling of pity
+and horror. In this feeling the Queen most deeply participated. While her
+visit to the only hospital in this country in which the sufferers by the
+war were received, was a gratification to her own kindly sympathies, and
+most cheering and solacing to the inmates, it could not fail to convey to
+the thousands of sufferers in the East, and to the kinsmen and kinswomen
+whose hearts bled for them at home, that no heart was fuller of pity than
+that of her under whose flag they had fought and fallen.
+
+The whole of the wounded who were in a condition to leave their beds were
+drawn up in chairs on the lawn, each having written upon it a card
+containing the name and services of the occupant, the nature of his
+wounds, and where they were received. The Queen passed along the line,
+saying a few kind words to those sufferers who particularly attracted her
+notice, or to those whose services were specially commended. She visited
+every ward, except that containing fever cases. A few days after, the
+Queen reviewed some cavalry and artillery at Woolwich. After the review,
+she visited the hospital, and saw the wounded artillery-men who had
+returned from the Crimea. Nor were these isolated exhibitions of sentiment
+or emotion. Upon every occasion during the continuance of the war, the
+Queen showed the most heartfelt sympathy with her brave soldiers; visited
+their hospitals and transport ships; received the wounded at her palace,
+and suggested and liberally assisted in the establishment of permanent
+means of relief for them and their families. A beautiful letter of the
+Queen, which was accidentally made public about this time, showed that in
+the privacy of domestic life Her Majesty never forgot these sufferers.
+Indeed, she complained that she was not kept sufficiently informed of the
+needs of those who had returned wounded to their country.
+
+[Sidenote: DISTRIBUTION OF WAR MEDALS.]
+
+It was equally the Queen's duty and pleasure to reward conspicuous merit,
+as it was to do all that lay within the limits of her human and regal
+power to soothe the pangs of woe. One scene in which she discharged this
+high queenly function will never be forgotten by those who were privileged
+to witness it. The Queen determined to present with her own hand, to the
+officers of the Crimean army, and to a portion of the non-commissioned
+officers and privates, who had returned to their country disabled by their
+wounds, the medals which they had so dearly won. This act of grace and
+kindness deeply touched a sentiment that rested deep in the bosom of the
+nation, that had, indeed, there rested ever since--nay, long
+before--Elizabeth thrilled the heroic hearts of her people at Tilbury by
+saying, "I myself will be your general and judge, and the rewarder of
+every one of your victories in the field."
+
+The presentation took place on the 18th of May, 1855. A royal dais was
+erected in the centre of the parade of the Horse Guards, and the public
+offices which surround it were filled up with galleries for the royal
+family and nobility. Within an area enclosed by barriers, were the
+intended recipients of the decorations. Without was a dense mass of
+spectators. When the Queen had reached the ground, the Guards, who had
+hitherto been in line, were formed four deep, and through the intervals
+thus opened the Crimean heroes passed, and in a few moments the Queen
+stood face to face with them. Each then passed singly, receiving his medal
+at the hands of Her Majesty, who presented them with a grace and kindness
+which brought tears to many an eye long unused to their effusion. The
+first to receive his medal was the Duke of Cambridge, who was
+enthusiastically received. Then followed other General officers, then the
+staff, and then in order, without distinction of regimental rank, came
+cavalry, artillery, engineers, and the line.
+
+The sight was one of the most thrilling ever seen in our metropolis, or in
+our times. The gaunt and pallid forms, scarred features, and maimed and
+mutilated limbs, brought home to the heart of the least sympathetic the
+ravages of war, and the cost and guerdon of bravery. Many of those who
+hobbled upon crutches, or walked painfully with the assistance of a stick,
+wore upon their arms the emblems of mourning for some brother or near
+relative, now reposing by the waters of the Euxine or the Bosphorus. To
+each one of the wounded, whether officer or private, the Queen said some
+kind word or asked some kindly question of him. Many of the poor fellows
+were quite overcome by the tenderness of her compassion. Those officers
+whose wounds rendered them unable to walk, were wheeled past in Bath
+chairs. Sir Thomas Troubridge, who lost both feet at Inkerman, and who
+has since died, was the first of these. The Queen, leaning over his chair,
+handed him his medal with the most gracious gesture, and conferred upon
+him the post of aide-de-camp to herself. Captains Sayer and Currie, who
+were also wheeled past, received similar sympathy.
+
+After the soldiers, came 450 sailors and marines, under Admiral Dundas,
+who was the first to be decorated. The ceremony over, the non-commissioned
+officers and men of all services dined in the riding-school, where they
+were visited by the Queen, her husband, and their children.
+
+[Sidenote: THE VOLUNTEER MOVEMENT.]
+
+Closely and intimately allied with the intense warlike feeling which
+prevailed throughout the period which we have been traversing, was the
+rise, or rather the revival from our grandfathers' times, of the Volunteer
+movement, in the winter of 1858-9. This very notable phenomenon of modern
+days was entirely of spontaneous origin and popular outgrowth. At first
+the authorities looked but coldly upon it--wisely so, we think--until it
+evinced inherent elements of vitality and reality of purpose, and until it
+appeared that it was something more than a mere passing impulse. It was
+not until the 15th of May, 1859, that a circular from the Secretary for
+War gave to the movement official sanction, in the form of an
+authoritative permission by the Queen for the formation of volunteer
+corps. Ere a twelvemonth had elapsed, 70,000 men had enrolled themselves
+in England and Scotland; and before the end of the summer of 1860, that
+number had swollen into 170,000. In many other and more emphatic modes the
+Queen graciously accorded her own personal sanction and her warm and
+approving recognition to the movement. At a special levée, held in March,
+1859, all volunteer officers had the opportunity of being presented. At
+the first meeting at Wimbledon of the National Rifle Association, in July,
+1860, Her Majesty founded an annual prize, in value £250. At the same
+meeting she fired the first shot, discharging a rifle, which had been
+carefully adjusted to a target 400 yards distant. The cheers of the
+assembled thousands welcomed the impact of the bullet within a quarter of
+an inch of the bull's eye, and one of many Swiss gentlemen, who were
+present as competitors, felicitously remarked that Queen Victoria was now
+_la première carabinière de l'Angleterre_.
+
+[Sidenote: THE HYDE PARK REVIEW.]
+
+The 23rd of June in this year was a still greater day for the volunteer
+army, and for the country, for it proved how earnestly the riflemen had
+devoted themselves to training and to discipline. Her Majesty having
+expressed her desire to review the young force on that day, arrangements
+were made by the War Office, whereby every corps that had attained a
+certain excellence might be represented by its efficient members. The
+numbers and strength of the corps that presented themselves for inspection
+caused great surprise. Not only London and Westminster, and the densely
+populated metropolitan counties, sent ample contingents, but the energies
+of the railway companies were taxed to the utmost to bring up bodies of
+men from the west of England, the Midlands, Lancashire, Yorkshire, and
+East Anglia--even from distant Northumbria. The authorities ultimately
+found that they would have to make arrangements for placing 20,000 men in
+review order. The review became a national spectacle, a general holiday
+was arranged, and an immense assemblage, provincial as well as
+metropolitan, was assembled in Hyde Park. The Queen's stand was placed in
+the centre of a long line of galleries erected for the accommodation of
+about 17,000 privileged spectators, its situation being indicated by the
+Royal Standard planted before it. At different hours of the morning, the
+provincial corps, some of which must have travelled all night, were landed
+at the railway termini--the Durham Artillery, which had travelled
+farthest, being the first to reach King's Cross. The river steam-boats
+landed their freights at convenient piers: the suburban bodies mustered at
+their appointed stations. The whole operation of marching the respective
+battalions and brigades, amalgamated as agreed on, was performed with
+unerring precision and perfect ease, thanks to the intelligent zeal of the
+men and the clear heads of their officers. By two o'clock, 21,000, formed
+in one long line, extended completely across the park. The space of time
+which intervened between the successive arrivals of the corps and the
+commencement of the review, offered one of the most picturesque spectacles
+witnessed in our days.
+
+Exactly at four o'clock the Queen arrived on the ground in an open
+carriage. Accompanying her were the King of the Belgians, the Princess
+Alice, and Prince Arthur. The Prince Consort and the Prince of Wales were
+on horseback. The Queen was attended by a magnificent following of general
+officers, aides-de-camp, staff officers, foreign military men of
+distinction, and the Lords-Lieutenant of the counties which furnished
+contingents to the force on the ground. There were also in attendance on
+the Sovereign the Duke of Cambridge and Mr. Sidney Herbert, the official
+heads of the army. Remarkable amongst the group was Field-Marshal Lord
+Combermere, who had counted no fewer than seventy years of military duty.
+As the cortège swept on to the ground the volunteers stood to arms, their
+bands playing the National Anthem. The scene now presented was in truth a
+magnificent one. On one side, from north to south, stood the thick lines
+of the volunteers, their somewhat sombre ranks varied by masses of dark
+uniforms, with here and there a mass of scarlet, the whole thrown into
+relief by the background of the trees of Kensington Gardens. From west to
+east, dense lines of people extended, many being raised head over head by
+the most precarious and illusory elevations. From north to south, at the
+eastern end of the park, and facing the line of volunteers, a glittering
+line of military uniforms of officers and the gay dresses of ladies who
+accompanied them gave a varied and rich fringe to the human masses of the
+_élite_ of the land who occupied the galleries above them. The green space
+so enclosed was dotted and animated by the bright scarlet, glittering
+cuirasses, snowy plumes, and jet-black steeds of the Life Guardsmen, who
+kept the ground.
+
+The Queen, followed by the whole of her brilliant Court, drove to the
+extreme left of the volunteer line, and thence slowly passed along the
+whole front to where the extreme right came close up to the lofty houses
+at Albert Gate. Then turning, she drew up on the open ground, the Royal
+Standard proudly waving above her. The bands of the Household Brigade
+being placed opposite her, the volunteers now began to defile past,
+between Her Majesty and the bands. The march was commenced by the mounted
+corps, few in number, but admirably equipped and with remarkably fine
+horses. The infantry were headed by the Artillery Company, to whom, as
+the oldest volunteer body existing, not only in England but in Europe, the
+priority has always been accorded. For an hour and a half corps after
+corps marched past, until the long succession was closed by a regiment
+from Cheshire. When the whole had passed, and all had returned to their
+original positions, the whole line advanced in columns of battalions, and,
+by signal, cheered Her Majesty with vociferous earnestness. After
+expressing her high satisfaction with what she had seen, the Queen left
+the ground about six o'clock. Before eight o'clock all the volunteers had
+been marched out of the park, and there remained within its gates only
+meagre remnants of the enormous crowd of spectators.
+
+[Sidenote: THE REVIEW AT EDINBURGH.]
+
+The opinions of competent authorities on the creditable manner in which
+this experimental review passed off were of the highest character. The
+Commander-in-Chief issued a general order, by command of the Queen, in
+which His Royal Highness spoke in the highest terms of the efficiency
+displayed by the various corps, and of Her Majesty's appreciation of the
+loyalty and devotion exhibited by the volunteer movement. Later in the
+season the Queen, when on her customary autumnal route to Balmoral,
+reviewed in the Queen's Park, at Edinburgh, the volunteers of her northern
+kingdom, to the number of 12,000.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXI.
+
+THE QUEEN IN HER HIGHLAND HOME.
+
+    The Queen as an Author--"The Early Years of the Prince
+    Consort"--"Leaves from the Journal of our Life in the Highlands"--Love
+    for Children of all Ranks--Mountain Ascents on Pony-back--In Fingal's
+    Cave--"The Queen's Luck"--Salmon-spearing, and a Catastrophe attending
+    it--Erection of a Memorial Cairn--Freedom of Intercourse with Humble
+    Highlanders--Visits to Cottagers--"Mrs. Albert"--Travelling
+    Incognito--Highland Dinners--"A Wedding-Party frae Aberdeen"--A
+    Disguise Detected.
+
+
+Early in January of the year 1868, Queen Victoria added her name to the
+distinguished roll of Royal authors. In the year preceding, there had been
+published a work entitled, "The Early Years of the Prince Consort," in
+which the life of her revered and lamented husband is traced from its
+beginning, down to the first period of their common wedded life. On the
+title-page of this work appears the name, as author, of General the
+Honourable Charles Grey, a gentleman who accompanied the Prince in a tour
+to Italy before his marriage, and who has ever since remained attached, in
+high capacities, to the Royal Household. This book, to which we have been
+indebted for important materials reproduced by us at certain of the
+earlier stages of our narrative, was published with the sanction of Her
+Majesty, and its compiler received from his Royal Mistress most, if not
+all, of the materials which he very tastefully combined. But the Queen
+did not appear in it as author _in propriâ personâ_, save in the instance
+of certain occasional notes and addenda to which her imprint is attached.
+The work published in 1868, on the other hand, "Leaves from the Journal of
+Our Life in the Highlands," is entirely, save a brief editorial
+introduction, from the Queen's pen. It is precisely, as its name imports,
+a series of extracts from a journal kept from day to day, and extended
+from Her Majesty's earliest married days far into those of her widowhood.
+Special passages are, in addition, given from similar diaries, which
+recorded yacht trips to the beautiful estuary of the Tamar, to the Duchy
+of Cornwall, and to the Channel Islands. There is also furnished a very
+sparkling and vivacious record of the Queen's first visit to Ireland, in
+1849, which will be found duly recorded by us in a previous chapter.
+
+Nothing charms more in these pages than the love displayed for all young
+people--for the writer's own sons and daughters, who are described by
+their home pet names; "Vicky," and "Bertie," standing, for example, for
+Victoria and Albert--for the infant child of a ducal entertainer, depicted
+as "a dear, white, fat, fair little fellow," and "such a merry,
+independent little child"--or for the children of humble cottagers at
+Balmoral, for "Mary Symons and Lizzie Stuart dancing so nicely; the latter
+with her hair all hanging down." When the Queen and Prince and the
+children land at Dundee, what charms the fond young mother most is, that
+"Vicky" behaves like a grown-up person, and is "not put out, nor
+frightened, nor nervous." And when a little grandchild of Lord Camperdown
+presented the youthful Princess Royal with a nosegay, the reflection that
+rose to the mother's mind was, that she could hardly believe that she was
+travelling as a wife and a mother; for it seemed but as yesterday that
+she, as a child, in the tours taken with _her_ mother through England,
+used to receive similar childish tokens. She was at once put in mind of
+the time when _she_ had been "the little Princess."
+
+[Sidenote: HAPPY DAYS IN THE HIGHLANDS.]
+
+Accounts of rides on shaggy Highland ponies to the tops of mountains, and
+more lengthened _incognito_ excursions in whatever vehicles could be
+procured at third-rate country inns, are thickly scattered over the pages
+of the "Journal."
+
+The Western Islands, as well as the Highlands, were at least on one
+occasion visited. Anchoring close by wondrous Staffa, the Queen
+disembarked, and was rowed in a barge into Fingal's Cave. This was the
+first time that the British standard, with a Queen of Great Britain and
+her husband and children, had ever entered the portals of this wondrous
+freak of nature, and the Gaelic oarsmen gave three cheers, the echoes of
+which from the inmost recesses of the cave were most impressive.
+
+On another mountain ramble, the Queen seated herself calmly, the youthful
+Prince of Wales lying among the heather by her side, while Prince Albert
+went to stalk a deer. He brought down a "royal," that is, a stag which has
+over a certain number of "tines" to his horns; on which the somewhat
+superstitious Highland keeper at once said that "it was Her Majesty's
+coming out that had brought the good luck." The Highlanders all believed
+that the Queen had "a lucky foot."
+
+[Sidenote: SALMON-SPEARING IN SCOTLAND.]
+
+Amongst other Highland sports which curiosity and great love of adventure
+led her to witness, was salmon spearing, or "leistering." While the
+keepers were beating the waters, the Highland gentlemen wading in the
+stream, and Prince Albert watching, spear in hand, on a boulder, the Queen
+watched from the brink this, the most exciting of all river sports, save,
+perhaps, otter hunting. Suddenly she was alarmed, and with most abundant
+cause. Two of the men imprudently went into a very deep pool. One of them
+could not swim, and he sank to the bottom. There was a cry for help, and a
+general rush by the Prince and others to the spot. The Queen was much
+frightened, and grasped the arm of the minister in attendance, Lord
+Carlisle, in great agony. But Dr. Robertson, the Queen's "factor," or
+agent over the Balmoral estate, swam in and got the too venturesome Gael
+out safely. The Queen, after this "horrid moment," had the satisfaction of
+seeing eight salmon speared or netted; and was further amused by a curious
+piece of Highland courtesy--her own "men" carrying all the "men" of
+Colonel Forbes, a neighbour, dry shod on their backs through the water.
+They had come to see the sport, and the Queen's gillies at once insisted
+on their conveying them to the most favourable side of the stream.
+
+A great day was that on which a cairn was erected on one of the heights
+overlooking Balmoral to celebrate the building of the new castle, which
+the Queen raised in lieu of the mansion which had stood on the estate when
+she was its tenant, and ere by its purchase she entered into proprietary
+possession. The morning was a fine one, and at eleven o'clock the Royal
+party started for the ascent of Craig Cowan, where already nearly all the
+dependants were assembled. The Royal children, and all the ladies and
+gentlemen, accompanied the Queen and Prince. All the children of the
+Queen's neighbouring tenants, and of her servants, were already on the
+top. The Queen laid the first stone, and the Prince the second, and then
+their children according to their ages. Then all the ladies and gentlemen
+of the Court placed a stone each. The pipers played the while, and whisky
+was served out to every one. It took an hour to build the cairn, and
+dancing and merry revels went on without intermission until its
+completion; the very oldest of the women danced, and the youngsters were
+wild with glee. An old favourite dog sat reflectively contemplating a
+scene to which his veteran gravity prevented his indulging in any
+responsive and sympathetic gambols. At last when the cairn, having
+attained to the respectable height of some eight feet, was pronounced all
+but complete, the Prince climbed to its summit and placed the last stone,
+and three hearty cheers announced to the dwellers below the completion of
+the enterprise and edifice. The Queen concludes her chronicle of its
+erection in these words:--"It was a gay, pretty, and touching sight, and I
+felt almost inclined to cry. The view was so beautiful over the dear
+hills, the day so fine, the whole so _gemüthlich_. May God bless this
+place, and allow us yet to see it and enjoy it many a long year!"
+
+The Queen and her family have always made it a practice to enter into the
+freest and most unrestrained conversation with the dignified, independent,
+courteous, and truly well-bred Highlanders. As she rode along a hill-side
+one day, "Alice and Bertie" accompanying her on foot, Prince Albert was
+conversing very gaily with one of the gillies, upon which the one who led
+the Queen's pony observed, "It's very pleasant to walk with a person who
+is always content." And when the Queen, following up her attendant's
+remark, said that he was never cross after bad sport, the gillie rejoined,
+"Every one on the estate says there never was so kind a master; our only
+wish is to give satisfaction." The Queen replied that that wish they
+certainly succeeded in fulfilling. And at a future date the Queen thus
+annotated that passage in her journal from which we have been
+borrowing:--"We were always in the habit of conversing with the
+Highlanders, with whom we came so much in contact in the Highlands. The
+Prince highly appreciated the good breeding, simplicity, and intelligence
+which makes it so pleasant, and even instructive, to talk to them."
+
+[Sidenote: THE QUEEN AND SCOTTISH COTTAGERS.]
+
+The Queen takes especial pleasure in visiting the old women's cottages, by
+some of whom, we have been told, she is not unfrequently addressed--or at
+least was so, when she was yet new to the north and the northerners new to
+her--as "Mrs. Albert." One old dame of eighty-six, erect and dignified as
+she sat at her spinning-wheel, received personally from Her Majesty the
+gift of a warm flannel petticoat. This was her pious and eloquent form of
+thanks: "May the Lord ever attend you and yours, here and hereafter, and
+may the Lord be a guide to ye, and keep ye from all harm!" Another aged
+pensioner, who was quite friendly, and shook hands with all her party of
+visitors, chose this form of benediction: "May the Lord attend you with
+mirth and with joy; may He ever be with you in this world, and when ye
+leave it!"
+
+[Sidenote: THE QUEEN IN DISGUISE.]
+
+The Queen's mode of travelling as an _incognita_ has never gone beyond a
+journey of three or four days' duration to some Highland district, in
+which the very amplitude of her retinue, even when abridged of its usual
+proportions, prevented her passing otherwise than as a person of
+distinction, but in which it was possible to keep her _queenly_ rank
+undiscovered. Sometimes the mask was successfully worn to the end of the
+trip, to the great enjoyment of the Queen, her "gentle" attendants, and
+her servants. On one or two occasions, recognitions, unfortunate for the
+success of the very innocent plot, were made by persons to whom the
+Queen's face was familiar. On one of these trips, two shabby vehicles
+contained the whole party, which consisted of the Royal pair, Sir George
+Grey, Lady Churchill, and a small complement of servants. It had been
+arranged that the tourists should pass as Lord and Lady Churchill (the
+Queen and Prince assuming these _rôles_), Lady Churchill becoming Miss
+Spencer, and Sir George Grey becoming "Dr." Grey. Once or twice the
+servants, who were of necessity in the plot, forgot their instructions,
+and blurted out "your Majesty," and "your Royal Highness;" but, luckily,
+no one heard the _faux pas_. After a very long and fatiguing drive through
+a district remarkably denuded of habitations, they arrived, at nightfall,
+at an inn of very small pretensions. They alighted, Sir George Grey and
+Lady Churchill, faithful to the necessities of the situation, giving no
+indication, by any deference of manner, of the quality of their
+fellow-travellers. Being ushered into small but tidy sleeping and dressing
+apartments, they had their travel-stains removed, and sat down to such a
+dinner as the resources of the establishment afforded. The two gillies in
+attendance were to have waited at table, but their bashfulness prevented
+their undertaking duties so entirely out of their line; so a damsel in
+ringlets, attached to the inn, performed the necessary duties. The repast
+consisted of a very delicate and delicious Scottish soup, known as
+"hodge-podge"--which, to be tasted to perfection, however, must be
+partaken of in early summer, when vegetables (of many kinds of which it is
+composed) are young and tender--mutton broth, fowls, "good" roast lamb,
+and "very good" potatoes. A bottle of wine the travellers had taken care
+to bring with them. They were less fortunate on the occasion of another
+similar trip, when all that could be procured was a couple of remarkably
+small and lean fowls, the remnants of which were sent down to the
+servants, with appetites rendered voracious by the keen mountain air. On
+this latter trip, a commercial traveller was much annoyed at his exclusion
+from the "commercial room," which was reserved for the servants. In answer
+to his remonstrance, the landlady pacified him by stating that the guests,
+who occupied her whole house, were "a wedding-party frae Aberdeen."
+
+When the cavalcade of the two "shabby vehicles" drove away, on the next
+morning, it was evident that "the murder was out," and that the inmates of
+the inn had discovered the quality of their guests, and communicated it to
+the scanty population of the village; for "all the people were in the
+street, and the landlady waved a pocket-handkerchief, and the ringletted
+maid a flag, from the window."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXII.
+
+THE WIDOWED QUEEN.
+
+    Unbroken Happiness of the Queen's Life up to 1861--Death of the
+    Duchess of Kent--The Prince Consort slightly Ailing--Catches Cold at
+    Cambridge and Eton--The Malady becomes Serious--Public Alarm--Rapid
+    Sinking, and Death--Sorrow of the People--The Queen's
+    Fortitude--Avoidance of Court Display--Good Deeds--Sympathy with all
+    Benevolent Actions--Letter of Condolence to the Widow of President
+    Lincoln--The Albert Medal--Conclusion.
+
+
+Until 1861 the Queen had never known bereavement in the circle of her own
+immediate family. Nine children had been born to her, and, although it is
+understood that certain of her younger offspring do not possess that
+robustness of health which their elder brothers and sisters enjoy, yet not
+one had been snatched from their loving parents by the hand of the Great
+Destroyer. Early in 1861 came the first pang of bereavement. The Duchess
+of Kent, ripe in years, one of the best of mothers and one of the best of
+grandmothers, a lady to whose memory all Britons now and hereafter owe an
+incalculable debt of gratitude, passed peacefully away with her
+descendants gathered around her bedside.
+
+[Sidenote: LAST DAYS OF PRINCE ALBERT.]
+
+When the Royal Family returned from Balmoral in October, it was observed
+that the Prince Consort was not in his usual health and vigour, but he had
+no pronounced ailment, and nothing approaching to serious alarm was for
+many weeks apprehended. In the course of the succeeding month he went to
+Cambridge, to visit the Prince of Wales, who was a student at that
+University, as he had previously been for a short time at Oxford. He went
+out shooting while there, got wet, and, as the Duke of Kent had done, was
+so imprudent as to sit down without removing his wet clothes.
+Nevertheless, on his return to Windsor, he pursued his usual daily
+avocations. About the beginning of December he appeared in public with the
+Queen, and reviewed the volunteer corps raised among the Eton boys. The
+rain fell fast, and the Prince was seized on the review ground with acute
+pains in the back. Feverish symptoms supervened, and the doctors ordered
+confinement to his room. Still no alarm was entertained, and it was
+believed that he suffered only from a passing malady. The general public
+knew nothing of the ailment until some solicitude was caused by a
+bulletin, which appeared in the _Court Circular_ of the 8th December:--
+
+    His Royal Highness the Prince Consort has been confined to his
+    apartments for the past week, suffering from a feverish cold, with
+    pains in his limbs. Within the last few days the feverish symptoms
+    have rather increased, and are likely to continue for some time
+    longer, but there are no unfavourable symptoms. The party which had
+    been invited by Her Majesty's command to assemble at Windsor Castle on
+    Monday has been countermanded.
+
+Not until the 13th was any bulletin issued which caused real anxiety and
+alarm. On the day following, the morning papers contained the ominous
+announcement that he had "passed a restless night, and the symptoms had
+assumed an unfavourable character during the day." The _Times_, in a
+leading article, while hoping for the best, startled all by its statement
+that "the fever which has attacked him is a weakening and wearying
+malady." On the morning of Saturday there was a favourable turn, but which
+was soon followed by a most serious relapse. About four p.m. the fever
+assumed a malignant typhoid type, and he began to sink with such rapidity
+that all stimulants failed to check the quick access of weakness. At nine
+o'clock a telegram was received in the City that the Prince was dying
+fast, and at a few minutes before eleven all was over. "On Saturday night
+last," said one of the daily journals of the succeeding Monday, "at an
+hour when the shops in the metropolis had hardly closed, when the theatres
+were delighting thousands of pleasure-seekers, when the markets were
+thronged with humble buyers seeking to provide for their Sunday
+requirements, when the foot-passengers yet lingered in the half-emptied
+streets, allured by the soft air of a calm, clear evening, a family in
+which the whole interest of this great nation is centred were assembled,
+less than five-and-twenty miles away, in the Royal residence at Windsor,
+in the deepest affliction around the death-bed of a beloved husband and
+father. In the prime of life, without--so to speak--a longer warning than
+that of forty-eight hours, Prince Albert, the Consort of our Queen, the
+parent of our future Monarchs, has been stricken down by a short but
+malignant disorder." Shortly after midnight, the great bell of St. Paul's,
+which is never tolled except upon the death of a member of the Royal
+Family, boomed the fatal tidings over a district extending, in the
+quietude of the early Sabbath morn, for miles around the metropolis.
+
+[Sidenote: DEATH OF PRINCE ALBERT.]
+
+The Queen, the Princess Alice, and the Prince of Wales, who had been
+hastily summoned from Cambridge, sat with the dying good man until the
+last. After the closing scene the Queen supported herself nobly, and
+after a short burst of uncontrollable grief, she is said to have gathered
+her children around her, and addressed them in the most solemn and
+affectionate terms. "She declared to her family that, though she felt
+crushed by the loss of one who had been her companion through life, she
+knew how much was expected of her, and she accordingly called on her
+children to give her their assistance, in order that she might do her duty
+to them and the country." The Duke of Cambridge and many gentlemen
+connected with the Court, with six of the Royal children, were present at
+the Prince's death. In answer to some one of those present who tenderly
+offered condolence, the Queen is reported to have said: "I suppose I must
+not fret too much, for many poor women have to go through the same trial."
+
+The sad news became generally known in the metropolis and in the great
+cities of the empire early on Sunday. Unusually large congregations filled
+the churches and chapels at morning service. "There was a solemn eloquence
+in the subdued but distinctly perceptible sensation which crept over the
+congregations in the principal churches when, in the prayer for the Royal
+family, the Prince Consort's name was omitted. It was well remarked, if
+ever the phrase was permissible, it might then be truly said that the name
+of the departed Prince was truly conspicuous by its absence, for never was
+the gap that this event has made in our national life, as well as in the
+domestic happiness of the Palace, more vividly realised than when the name
+that has mingled so familiarly in our prayers for the last twenty years
+was, for the first time, left out of our public devotions." Many
+thousands of mute pious petitions were specially addressed to Heaven for
+the bereaved widow and orphans when the prayer of the Litany for "all who
+are desolate and oppressed" was uttered, and in the chapels of
+Nonconformists the extemporaneous prayers of the ministers gave articulate
+expression to the heartfelt orisons of the silent worshippers. Every one
+thought of and felt for the Queen, and during the week intervening between
+the death and the funeral, the question on every one's lips in all places
+of resort, and where men and women congregated, was, "How will the Queen
+bear it?"
+
+Prince Albert sleeps the long sleep at Frogmore, to which his mortal
+remains were borne reverently, and without ostentation, as he himself
+would have wished. The inscription on his coffin ran thus:--
+
+                    DEPOSITUM
+        ILLUSTRISSIMI ET CELSISSIMI ALBERTI,
+                PRINCIPIS CONSORTIS,
+                   DUCIS SAXONIÆ,
+          DE SAXE-COBURG ET GOTHA PRINCIPIS,
+      NOBILISSIMI ORDINIS PERISCELIDIS EQUITIS,
+    AUGUSTISSIMÆ ET POTENTISSIMÆ VICTORIÆ REGINÆ,
+                CONJUGIS PERCARISSIMI,
+    OBIIT DIE DECIMO QUARTO DECEMBRIS, MDCCCLXI.
+                ANNO ÆTATIS SUÆ XLIII.
+
+    [Here lies the most illustrious and exalted Albert, Prince Consort,
+    Duke of Saxony, Prince of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, Knight of the Most
+    Noble Order of the Garter, the most beloved husband of the most august
+    and potent Queen Victoria. He died on the fourteenth day of December,
+    1861, in the forty-third year of his age.]
+
+Thus died and was buried a great and a good man, one of the most useful
+men of his age, one to whom England owes much.
+
+    "For that he loved our Queen,
+      And, for her sake, the people of her love,
+      Few and far distant names shall rank above
+    His own, where England's cherish'd names are seen."
+
+[Sidenote: THE QUEEN IN HER WIDOWHOOD.]
+
+The Queen has ever since her great bereavement most constantly and piously
+revered the Prince's memory. Her reverence has taken the practical form of
+the deepest sympathy with the woes and sorrows of the poorest and humblest
+of her subjects. She has eschewed the pomp and ceremony of State, and
+deliberately set herself to discover and soothe sorrow, and to recognise
+all good deeds of the same character performed by others. When the noble
+Peabody bestowed his princely act of munificence on the poor of London, no
+recognition was made of his generosity more signal than that made by the
+Queen. She has been among the first to help by loving words and by
+practical aid the sufferers by any great national calamity--a Lancashire
+famine, a shipwreck or railway accident, a colliery explosion, a
+catastrophe caused by mad and futile sedition. Ready and sympathetic
+condolence has especially flowed from her to those bereaved like herself,
+and when President Lincoln perished at his post, the Queen sent to his
+widow a long letter which her son described as "the outgushing of a
+woman's heartfelt sympathy," and which, with rare and commendable good
+taste, has never been exposed to the public eye. Most fitly has she
+specially commemorated her husband's memory by the institution of a fit
+companion and complement to the Victoria Cross, the "Albert Medal," which
+is bestowed on brave men who save lives from the "Peril of the Sea or
+Shipwreck."
+
+Many consolations have been vouchsafed by Heaven to the widowed Queen.
+Since she lost her great stay and support her realm has for the most part
+been prosperous and contented. Though environed by many troubles, and
+though the clang of battle has shaken the world, the dove of peace has
+benignantly hovered o'er Britain. Much advance has been made in those
+fields of social, moral, political, and educational improvement which were
+so dear to Albert's heart, as they have always been to her own. And
+shortly before the period when these pages are first given to the public,
+the political progress of the nation has received a great stimulus, such
+as is given in a people's history only at rare and long intervals. Her
+children grow up from youth to maturity, and from maturity to maternity
+and paternity, without a slur upon their fair names, and are, with those
+to whom the elder of them have united themselves in wedlock, all that a
+proud mother's heart could wish. God has stricken her; but He has proved
+also an Infinite Healer and Solacer. Ours be it to add to the ordinary
+motives of patriotism, those more tender and touching influences which
+arise from the recollection that our Queen is now, as said that Queen of
+England whose subjects were Shakespeare and Bacon, Spenser and
+Sidney--"Married to her People."
+
+
+THE END.
+
+
+CASSELL, PETTER, AND GALPIN, BELLE SAUVAGE WORKS, LONDON, E.C.
+
+
+
+
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+
+VOL. IV. _Life of Queen Victoria_ 75 cents.
+
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+<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=ISO-8859-1" />
+<title>The Project Gutenberg eBook of The Public Life of Queen Victoria, by John McGilchrist</title>
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+<body>
+<h1>The Project Gutenberg eBook, The Public Life of Queen Victoria, by John
+McGilchrist</h1>
+<p>This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at <a
+href="http://www.gutenberg.org">www.gutenberg.org</a></p>
+<p>Title: The Public Life of Queen Victoria</p>
+<p>Author: John McGilchrist</p>
+<p>Release Date: May 3, 2012  [eBook #39603]</p>
+<p>Language: English</p>
+<p>Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1</p>
+<p>***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE PUBLIC LIFE OF QUEEN VICTORIA***</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<h4>E-text prepared by Charlene Taylor<br />
+    and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team<br />
+    (<a href="http://www.pgdp.net">http://www.pgdp.net</a>)<br />
+    from page images generously made available by<br />
+    Internet Archive/American Libraries<br />
+    (<a href="http://www.archive.org/details/americana">http://www.archive.org/details/americana</a>)</h4>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<table border="0" style="background-color: #ccccff;margin: 0 auto;" cellpadding="10">
+  <tr>
+    <td valign="top">
+      Note:
+    </td>
+    <td>
+      Images of the original pages are available through
+      Internet Archive/American Libraries. See
+      <a href="http://archive.org/details/publiclifeofquee00mcgi">
+      http://archive.org/details/publiclifeofquee00mcgi</a>
+	</td>
+  </tr>
+</table>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<hr class="full" />
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+
+<p class="center"><span class="giant">THE<br />
+PUBLIC LIFE<br />
+OF<br />
+QUEEN VICTORIA.</span></p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p class="center"><small>BY</small><br />
+<span class="large">JOHN M<sup>c</sup>GILCHRIST.</span></p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p class="center">FELT AND DILLINGHAM,<br />
+455, BROOME STREET, NEW YORK.</p>
+
+
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p><p>&nbsp;</p>
+<hr style="width: 50%;" />
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_iii" id="Page_iii">[Pg iii]</a></span></p>
+<p class="title">CONTENTS.</p>
+
+<table width="75%" border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="5" summary="table">
+<tr><td>&nbsp;</td><td align="right"><small>PAGE</small></td></tr>
+<tr><td align="center"><a href="#CHAPTER_I">CHAPTER I.</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align="center">ANCESTRY.</td></tr>
+<tr><td>Frederick the Wise, Elector of Saxony, the Protector of Luther&mdash;Staunch Protestantism of the Queen&#8217;s Saxon Forefathers&mdash;House
+of Saxe-Coburg&mdash;A Saxon Desperado of the Middle Ages&mdash;A Fighting Hero of the Eighteenth Century&mdash;The
+Queen&#8217;s Grandmother a Woman of Extraordinary Excellence&mdash;Great Alliances in the Marriages of her Uncles and Aunts</td>
+    <td valign="bottom" align="right"><a href="#Page_1">1</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td>&nbsp;</td></tr>
+<tr><td align="center"><a href="#CHAPTER_II">CHAPTER II.</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align="center">THE GREATEST OF THE MODERN COBURGS.</td></tr>
+<tr><td>Romantic Career of Prince Leopold of Saxe-Coburg, the Queen&#8217;s Uncle&mdash;His Continuous, Kind, and Fatherly Care of his
+Orphaned Niece&mdash;The Duchy of Coburg held by Napoleon&mdash;Sufferings of the Ducal Family&mdash;A Temptation resisted&mdash;The
+Tide turned&mdash;Leopold&#8217;s Popularity in England&mdash;Betrothal and Marriage to the Princess Charlotte of Wales</td>
+    <td valign="bottom" align="right"><a href="#Page_8">8</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td>&nbsp;</td></tr>
+<tr><td align="center"><a href="#CHAPTER_III">CHAPTER III.</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align="center">PARENTAGE AND BIRTH OF QUEEN VICTORIA.</td></tr>
+<tr><td>How the Princess Victoria came to be Heiress Presumptive to the Throne&mdash;Death of the Princess Charlotte&mdash;Marriages of the
+Royal Dukes&mdash;Of the Duke of Kent&mdash;Birth of the Princess Alexandrina Victoria&mdash;Prediction of George IV.&mdash;Death of
+the Duke of Kent&mdash;His Character&mdash;His Liberal Opinions&mdash;Public Condolence with the Widow and Orphan&mdash;Early Life of the Duchess of Kent</td>
+    <td valign="bottom" align="right"><a href="#Page_14">14</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td>&nbsp;<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_iv" id="Page_iv">[Pg iv]</a></span></td></tr>
+<tr><td align="center"><a href="#CHAPTER_IV">CHAPTER IV.</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align="center">FIRST YEARS OF CHILDHOOD.</td></tr>
+<tr><td>Old Memories of Kensington Palace&mdash;Enlargements of the Structure by William III., Anne, Queen Caroline, and the Duke
+of Sussex&mdash;Maids of Honour&mdash;Rank and Beauty in the Gardens&mdash;Wilberforce and the Infant Princess&mdash;Victoria at
+Ramsgate&mdash;A Picture of Victoria when Five Years Old&mdash;Her Physical Training&mdash;Popularity as a Child&mdash;Her Youthful
+Charities&mdash;A Narrow Escape from Death&mdash;Early Development of Quick Intelligence&mdash;Anecdotes&mdash;Love of Nature&mdash;Proneness
+to Self-Will&mdash;But Counterbalanced by Candour&mdash;Waggishness&mdash;A Portrait of the Child-Princess by Leigh Hunt</td>
+    <td valign="bottom" align="right"><a href="#Page_23">23</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td>&nbsp;</td></tr>
+<tr><td align="center"><a href="#CHAPTER_V">CHAPTER V.</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align="center">EDUCATION OF THE PRINCESS VICTORIA.</td></tr>
+<tr><td>Additional Grant by Parliament for the Maintenance and Education of the Princess&mdash;Wise Lessons learned at her Mother&#8217;s
+Knee&mdash;A Visit to George IV. at Windsor&mdash;Assiduous Pursuit of Knowledge&mdash;Accession of William IV.&mdash;Victoria
+becomes next in Succession to the Crown&mdash;Regency Bill&mdash;Satisfaction of the Good Grandmother at Coburg&mdash;Her
+Death&mdash;Joy of Victoria at the Elevation of her Uncle to the Belgian Throne&mdash;Parliamentary Inquiry into the Progress of
+her Education&mdash;Satisfactory Report in Response&mdash;Presented at Court&mdash;Great Ball on her Twelfth Birthday at St. James&#8217;s
+Palace&mdash;Court Scandal and Baseless Rumours&mdash;The Duchess of Northumberland appointed Governess&mdash;The Princess and the Poet Southey</td>
+    <td valign="bottom" align="right"><a href="#Page_37">37</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td>&nbsp;</td></tr>
+<tr><td align="center"><a href="#CHAPTER_VI">CHAPTER VI.</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align="center">THE PRINCESS IN HER TEENS.</td></tr>
+<tr><td>Visits paid to many parts of England&mdash;Love of Cathedrals and Church Music&mdash;Trip to North Wales and the Midland
+Counties&mdash;Visit to a Cotton Mill&mdash;To Oxford&mdash;Gala Day at Southampton&mdash;Interview with the Young Queen of Portugal&mdash;Confirmation
+of the Princess&mdash;Tour to the North&mdash;York Musical Festival&mdash;At Ramsgate with the King of the Belgians&mdash;A Noble Deed at Tunbridge Wells</td>
+    <td valign="bottom" align="right"><a href="#Page_47">47</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td>&nbsp;<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_v" id="Page_v">[Pg v]</a></span></td></tr>
+<tr><td align="center"><a href="#CHAPTER_VII">CHAPTER VII.</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align="center">EARLY DAYS OF PRINCE ALBERT.</td></tr>
+<tr><td>Birth&mdash;Melancholy Story of his Mother&mdash;Brought up under the Care of his Two Excellent Grandmothers&mdash;His Winning Ways
+as a Child&mdash;His Tutor, Florsch&uuml;tz&mdash;The Brothers, Ernest and Albert&mdash;Visit to Brussels, and its Beneficial Effects&mdash;Hard
+Study&mdash;Tour through Germany, &amp;c.&mdash;First Visit to England, and Meeting with Victoria&mdash;Studies at Brussels&mdash;Enters
+the University of Bonn&mdash;Tour to Switzerland and Italy&mdash;Public Announcement of Betrothal&mdash;Leaves Coburg and Gotha for his Marriage</td>
+    <td valign="bottom" align="right"><a href="#Page_52">52</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td>&nbsp;</td></tr>
+<tr><td align="center"><a href="#CHAPTER_VIII">CHAPTER VIII.</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align="center">THE PRINCESS VICTORIA BECOMES QUEEN REGNANT.</td></tr>
+<tr><td>First Meeting of the Princess Victoria and Prince Albert&mdash;Coming of Age&mdash;Festivities on the Occasion&mdash;Death of William IV.,
+and Accession of Victoria&mdash;The Queen holds her First Privy Council&mdash;Her Address&mdash;Proclamation as Queen at St. James&#8217;s Palace&mdash;Beautiful
+Traits of Character displayed by the Queen&mdash;Stirring and Gorgeous Scene&mdash;Delight of the People at the Queen&#8217;s Accession</td>
+    <td valign="bottom" align="right"><a href="#Page_61">61</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td>&nbsp;</td></tr>
+<tr><td align="center"><a href="#CHAPTER_IX">CHAPTER IX.</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align="center">THE MAIDEN QUEEN.</td></tr>
+<tr><td>Removal to Buckingham Palace&mdash;First Lev&eacute;e&mdash;Dissolves Parliament&mdash;Beauty of her Elocution&mdash;Splendid Reception by the
+City of London&mdash;Settlement of the Queen&#8217;s Income&mdash;Her Daily Life&mdash;Her Admirable Knowledge of, and Devotion to,
+the Business of the State&mdash;Reverence for the Lord&#8217;s Day</td>
+    <td valign="bottom" align="right"><a href="#Page_69">69</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td>&nbsp;</td></tr>
+<tr><td align="center"><a href="#CHAPTER_X">CHAPTER X.</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align="center">THE QUEEN CROWNED.</td></tr>
+<tr><td>Novel Features in the Coronation&mdash;Its Cost&mdash;Large Amount of Money Circulated&mdash;Splendour of the Procession&mdash;Enormous
+Crowds&mdash;The Scene within the Abbey&mdash;Arrival of the Queen&mdash;The Regalia and Sacred Vessels&mdash;Costume of the Queen&mdash;Astonishment
+of the Turkish Ambassador at the Scene&mdash;The Coronation Ceremony&mdash;The Queen&#8217;s Oath&mdash;The Anointing&mdash;The
+Crown placed on her Head&mdash;The Homage&mdash;An Aged Peer&mdash;The Queen&#8217;s Crown&mdash;The Illuminations and
+General Festivities&mdash;Fair in Hyde Park&mdash;The Duke of Wellington and Marshal Soult at the Guildhall</td>
+    <td valign="bottom" align="right"><a href="#Page_75">75</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td>&nbsp;<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_vi" id="Page_vi">[Pg vi]</a></span></td></tr>
+<tr><td align="center"><a href="#CHAPTER_XI">CHAPTER XI.</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align="center">THE BEDCHAMBER PLOT.</td></tr>
+<tr><td>Resignation of Lord Melbourne&#8217;s Cabinet&mdash;Sir Robert Peel sent for&mdash;Fails to form a Cabinet&mdash;His Explanation&mdash;The Queen
+refuses to Dismiss her Ladies of the Bedchamber&mdash;Supported by her late Ministers&mdash;Sir Robert Peel&#8217;s Objections&mdash;The
+Queen will not give way&mdash;The Whigs recalled to Power&mdash;Public Opinion on the Dispute&mdash;The Whig Ministers blamed, and the Queen exculpated</td>
+    <td valign="bottom" align="right"><a href="#Page_84">84</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td>&nbsp;</td></tr>
+<tr><td align="center"><a href="#CHAPTER_XII">CHAPTER XII.</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align="center">COURTSHIP AND BETROTHAL.</td></tr>
+<tr><td>Desire of the Coburg Relatives for a Marriage between Victoria and Albert&mdash;Favourable Impressions mutually made by
+Victoria and Albert&mdash;Prince Albert&#8217;s Letter on the Queen&#8217;s Accession&mdash;Opposition of King William IV. to the Marriage&mdash;Correspondence
+between the Cousins&mdash;King Leopold Urges on the Marriage&mdash;The Queen&#8217;s Reluctance to become Betrothed&mdash;Her subsequent Regret at this&mdash;The Prince
+craves a definite Determination&mdash;His Second Visit to England&mdash;Betrothed at Last&mdash;Returns to Germany to say Farewell</td>
+    <td valign="bottom" align="right"><a href="#Page_91">91</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td>&nbsp;</td></tr>
+<tr><td align="center"><a href="#CHAPTER_XIII">CHAPTER XIII.</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align="center">THE QUEEN WEDDED.</td></tr>
+<tr><td>Announcement of the Intended Marriage to the Privy Council and Parliament&mdash;Parliamentary Settlement of the Prince&#8217;s
+Rank, &amp;c.&mdash;Annoying Circumstances&mdash;The Prince&#8217;s Protestantism&mdash;His Income&mdash;Arrival of the Bridegroom&mdash;Receives
+a National Welcome&mdash;The Wedding&mdash;Honeymoon Spent at Windsor</td>
+    <td valign="bottom" align="right"><a href="#Page_100">100</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td>&nbsp;</td></tr>
+<tr><td align="center"><a href="#CHAPTER_XIV">CHAPTER XIV.</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align="center">EARLY YEARS OF MARRIED LIFE.</td></tr>
+<tr><td>Difficulties and Delicacy of Prince Albert&#8217;s Position&mdash;Early Married Life&mdash;Studies continued&mdash;Attempts on the Queen&#8217;s
+Life&mdash;Courage of the Queen&mdash;Birth of the Princess Royal&mdash;Parting from the Whig Ladies of the Bedchamber&mdash;Dark
+Days for England&mdash;Birth of the Prince of Wales&mdash;The Queen Described by M. Guizot&mdash;A Dinner at Buckingham Palace&mdash;State Dinner at Windsor</td>
+    <td valign="bottom" align="right"><a href="#Page_110">110</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td>&nbsp;<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_vii" id="Page_vii">[Pg vii]</a></span></td></tr>
+<tr><td align="center"><a href="#CHAPTER_XV">CHAPTER XV.</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align="center">THE QUEEN IN SCOTLAND.</td></tr>
+<tr><td>Christening of the Prince of Wales&mdash;Manufacturing Distress&mdash;The Queen&#8217;s Efforts to alleviate it&mdash;Assesses Herself to the
+Income Tax&mdash;Resolves to Visit Scotland&mdash;Embarks at Woolwich&mdash;Beacon Fires in the Firth of Forth&mdash;Landing on
+Scottish Soil&mdash;A Disappointment&mdash;Formal Entry into Edinburgh&mdash;Richness of Historical and Ancestral Associations&mdash;The
+Queen on the Castle Rock&mdash;A Highland Welcome&mdash;Departure from Scotland</td>
+    <td valign="bottom" align="right"><a href="#Page_126">126</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td>&nbsp;</td></tr>
+<tr><td align="center"><a href="#CHAPTER_XVI">CHAPTER XVI.</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align="center">WHAT ENGLAND OWES TO PRINCE ALBERT.</td></tr>
+<tr><td>The Prince&#8217;s Study of our Laws and Constitution&mdash;Two Misconceptions Outlived&mdash;His Versatility&mdash;His First Speech an
+Anti-Slavery one&mdash;His Appreciation and Judicious Criticism of Art&mdash;Scientific Side of his Mind&mdash;As an Agriculturist</td>
+    <td valign="bottom" align="right"><a href="#Page_141">141</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td>&nbsp;</td></tr>
+<tr><td align="center"><a href="#CHAPTER_XVII">CHAPTER XVII.</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align="center">FOREIGN TRAVEL AND HOME VISITS.</td></tr>
+<tr><td>Visit to King Louis Philippe at Eu&mdash;A Loyal Corporation&mdash;Splendid Reception of the Queen in France&mdash;Anecdote of
+the Queen&#8217;s Regard for Prince Albert&mdash;Visit of the Czar Nicholas&mdash;Home Life in Scotland&mdash;Visit to Germany&mdash;Illuminations
+of the Rhine&mdash;A Rural F&ecirc;te at Coburg</td>
+    <td valign="bottom" align="right"><a href="#Page_149">149</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td>&nbsp;</td></tr>
+<tr><td align="center"><a href="#CHAPTER_XVIII">CHAPTER XVIII.</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align="center">THE QUEEN IN IRELAND.</td></tr>
+<tr><td>First Visit to Ireland&mdash;Rapturous Reception at Cork&mdash;Queenstown so denominated&mdash;Enthusiasm at Dublin&mdash;Its Graceful
+Recognition by the Queen&mdash;Visit to the Dublin Exhibition&mdash;Encouragement of Native Industry&mdash;Visit to the Lakes of Killarney&mdash;The Whirligig of Time</td>
+    <td valign="bottom" align="right"><a href="#Page_157">157</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td>&nbsp;<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_viii" id="Page_viii">[Pg viii]</a></span></td></tr>
+<tr><td align="center"><a href="#CHAPTER_XIX">CHAPTER XIX.</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align="center">THE WORLD&#8217;S CONGRESS OF INDUSTRY.</td></tr>
+<tr><td>Prince Albert the Inaugurator of International Exhibitions&mdash;Proposes, Unsuccessfully, his Scheme to the Government&mdash;To
+the Society of Arts, Successfully&mdash;First Steps towards Realisation&mdash;Objections to be Met&mdash;Perseverance of the
+Prince&mdash;The Royal Commission&mdash;The Prince&#8217;s Speech at York&mdash;The Opening Ceremony&mdash;The Royal Procession</td>
+    <td valign="bottom" align="right"><a href="#Page_164">164</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td>&nbsp;</td></tr>
+<tr><td align="center"><a href="#CHAPTER_XX">CHAPTER XX.</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align="center">THE WAR CLOUD.</td></tr>
+<tr><td>Bright Hopes of Peace Dispelled&mdash;An Era of War all over the World&mdash;The Russian War&mdash;The Queen&#8217;s Visits to the
+Wounded Soldiers&mdash;Presentation of the War Medals&mdash;Crimean Heroes&mdash;The Volunteer Movement</td>
+    <td valign="bottom" align="right"><a href="#Page_172">172</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td>&nbsp;</td></tr>
+<tr><td align="center"><a href="#CHAPTER_XXI">CHAPTER XXI.</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align="center">THE QUEEN IN HER HIGHLAND HOME.</td></tr>
+<tr><td>The Queen as an Author&mdash;&#8220;The Early Years of the Prince Consort&#8221;&mdash;&#8220;Leaves from the Journal of Our Life in the
+Highlands&#8221;&mdash;Love for Children of all Ranks&mdash;Mountain Ascents on Pony-back&mdash;In Fingal&#8217;s Cave&mdash;&#8220;The Queen&#8217;s
+Luck&#8221;&mdash;Salmon-spearing, and a Catastrophe attending it&mdash;Erection of a Memorial Cairn&mdash;Freedom of Intercourse with
+Humble Highlanders&mdash;Visits to Cottagers&mdash;&#8220;Mrs. Albert&#8221;&mdash;Travelling Incognito&mdash;Highland Dinners&mdash;&#8220;A Wedding-Party
+frae Aberdeen&#8221;&mdash;A Disguise Detected</td>
+    <td valign="bottom" align="right"><a href="#Page_186">186</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td>&nbsp;</td></tr>
+<tr><td align="center"><a href="#CHAPTER_XXII">CHAPTER XXII.</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align="center">THE WIDOWED QUEEN.</td></tr>
+<tr><td>Unbroken Happiness of the Queen&#8217;s Life up to 1861&mdash;Death of the Duchess of Kent&mdash;The Prince Consort slightly Ailing&mdash;Catches
+Cold at Cambridge and Eton&mdash;The Malady becomes Serious&mdash;Public Alarm&mdash;Rapid Sinking, and Death&mdash;Sorrow
+of the People&mdash;The Queen&#8217;s Fortitude&mdash;Avoidance of Court Display&mdash;Good Deeds&mdash;Sympathy with all Benevolent
+Actions&mdash;Letter of Condolence to the Widow of President Lincoln&mdash;The &#8220;Albert Medal&#8221;&mdash;Conclusion</td>
+    <td valign="bottom" align="right"><a href="#Page_194">194</a></td></tr></table>
+
+
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p><p>&nbsp;</p>
+<hr style="width: 50%;" />
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_1" id="Page_1">[Pg 1]</a></span></p>
+<p class="center"><span class="giant">LIFE OF QUEEN VICTORIA.</span></p>
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_I" id="CHAPTER_I"></a>CHAPTER I.</h2>
+<p class="title">ANCESTRY.</p>
+
+<div class="note"><p class="hang">Frederick the Wise, Elector of Saxony, the Protector of
+Luther&mdash;Staunch Protestantism of the Queen&#8217;s Saxon Forefathers&mdash;House
+of Saxe-Coburg&mdash;A Saxon Desperado of the Middle Ages&mdash;A Fighting Hero
+of the Eighteenth Century&mdash;The Queen&#8217;s Grandmother a Woman of
+Extraordinary Excellence&mdash;Great Alliances in the Marriages of her
+Uncles and Aunts.</p></div>
+
+
+<p>Queen Victoria is, through her mother, descended&mdash;and her children are
+descended by the double line of both their parents&mdash;from the great, good,
+and glorious Frederick the Wise, Elector of Saxony early in the sixteenth
+century, who was one of the first to embrace the principles of Luther&#8217;s
+Reformation, and whose name still stands out so nobly and brightly as the
+staunch and courageous protector of the great Reformer. The Ernestine
+branch of this great Saxon house, from which the Queen and the Prince
+Consort both derived their descent, have ever, though at great cost and
+injury to themselves at many periods of their history, remained true to
+the principles thus early adopted by their common ancestor; and they have
+ever considered it as the brightest glory of their race, that they can<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_2" id="Page_2">[Pg 2]</a></span>
+proudly point to this unquestionable fact. When one of the most
+distinguished members&mdash;if, indeed, he was not the most illustrious
+scion&mdash;of this family, the Queen&#8217;s maternal uncle, Leopold, King of the
+Belgians, made a journey into Scotland, to allay the pangs of the
+bereavement which he had suffered in the untimely death of his young wife,
+the Princess Charlotte, he paid a visit of a few days&#8217; duration to Sir
+Walter Scott at Abbotsford. While there, an aged and reverend Scottish
+divine was presented to the Prince. The clergyman, in the course of the
+interview, made complimentary reference to this fact in the descent of the
+Prince. Prince Leopold, in reply, stated that this was the first notice
+which had been taken of the circumstance in his presence since the day of
+his first arrival in England, and that he felt more honoured by it than by
+any other tribute which had been paid to him and his family.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">&#8220;A GLIMPSE OF SAXON HISTORY.&#8221;</div>
+
+<p>The curious in such matters, those for whom the minute particularity of
+authenticated genealogical detail possesses a charm, with which the
+compiler of these pages acknowledges that he is himself affected, but
+which it would be unfair to such of his readers as do not share this taste
+to minister to at excessive length&mdash;such we refer to the Reverend Edward
+Tauerschmidt&#8217;s &#8220;Brief Historical Account of the Dukedom and Ducal House of
+Saxe-Coburg and Gotha.&#8221; There they will find the full pedigree, with no
+link wanting, which connects Her Majesty, and equally her first cousin and
+spouse, by the links of twenty-five generations, with the Saxon Earl
+Theodoric, or Dideric, of the House of Bucizi, who is recorded to have
+died in the year of our Lord 982. We content ourselves with proceeding at
+a leap to the reign<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_3" id="Page_3">[Pg 3]</a></span> of Frederick the Benignant, Elector of Saxony, who
+was thirteenth in descent from Earl Theodoric, and died in 1464. In a most
+fascinating article which was contributed by Mr. Carlyle to the January
+number of the <i>Westminster Review</i> for the year 1855, entitled, &#8220;A Glimpse
+of Saxon History,&#8221; a most romantic incident of this Elector&#8217;s reign is
+narrated with the writer&#8217;s customary graphic power. This potentate had a
+&#8220;fighting captain&#8221; in his employ, by name Kunz von Kaufungen. Fighting for
+his master, he was captured, and being a warrior of importance, was
+amerced in the heavy ransom of a sum equal to 2,000 English pounds. This
+he paid, but expected to be indemnified by Frederick. This expectation,
+for some reason, was not fulfilled. Kunz, exasperated, swore to be
+avenged. On the 7th of July, 1455, Kunz entered the town of Altenburg, at
+the head of a party of thirty men. Having bribed one of the servants to
+treachery, they obtained admission into the Electoral castle, from which
+they carried off Frederick&#8217;s two sons, the Princes Ernest and Albert. The
+Electress soon discovered her loss, and the desperadoes had not proceeded
+far on their several ways (they had divided into two bands, each having
+one of the children), ere they were hotly pursued. Kunz himself headed
+that moiety of his force who bore with them Ernest, the elder boy and the
+more valuable hostage. The pursuers caused alarms to be rung from the
+village spires, and amongst others of the peasantry who were aroused, was
+a rough charcoal-burner, who, encountering the party of Kunz, &#8220;belaboured
+him with the poking-pole&#8221; which he used in his vocation, and to such
+effect that he vanquished the abductor, rescued the boy, and had the
+happiness of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_4" id="Page_4">[Pg 4]</a></span> restoring him to the arms of his agonised mother. When
+asked, wonderingly and admiringly, how he dared to attack so formidable a
+foe, he replied to his fair and grateful querist, &#8220;Madam, I <i>drilled</i> him
+soundly with my poking-pole.&#8221; From that day he was known by no other name
+than the Driller&mdash;<i>der Triller</i>. Kunz was consigned to the block, while
+the Driller, and deliverer, was offered any reward he chose to name. This
+true man&mdash;a medi&aelig;val &#8220;Miller of the Dee&#8221;&mdash;asked no other recompense than
+&#8220;only liberty to cut, of scrags and waste wood, what will suffice for my
+charring purposes.&#8221; This was at once granted, along with the freehold of a
+snug farm, and an annual and ample allowance of corn from the barns of the
+Electors. All was secured to him and his posterity by formal deed, and his
+descendants to this day enjoy the privileges so valiantly earned by their
+ancestor four centuries ago. From the two princes so rescued, descended
+respectively the Ernestine and the Albertine branches of the Saxon house.
+The Queen is&mdash;as her husband was&mdash;twelfth in descent from the little
+Prince Ernest, who became the progenitor of the former line.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">THE QUEEN&#8217;S SAXON ANCESTORS.</div>
+
+<p>The parent stock had boasted among other meritorious or distinguished
+representatives the names of Conrad the Great, Otho the Rich, Henry the
+Illustrious, three Fredericks, dubbed respectively the Serious, the
+Warlike, and the Benignant; whilst, as disparaging sets-off, either
+demerit or misfortune was indicated, in the instance of other Electors, by
+these sobriquets&mdash;the Oppressed, the Degenerate, the Severe, and,
+strangest of all, Frederick-with-the-Wounded-Cheek. This habit of
+designating the successive Electors by their moral or other
+peculiarities,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_5" id="Page_5">[Pg 5]</a></span> or by the incidents or accidents of their careers, was
+continued but for a few generations of the Ernestine branch of the
+bifurcated line. It contained a Magnanimous Frederick, and a Fiery Ernest,
+after whose death, in 1675, this pleasing plan of picturesque designation
+no longer meets the eye of the student.</p>
+
+<p>The chivalrous protection which Frederick the Magnanimous&mdash;or the Wise, as
+he is sometimes also denominated&mdash;spread as a buckler over Luther and the
+Lutherans cost him his birthright. The bigoted Charles V. diverted, in
+1547, the Electoral dignity from the Ernestine to the Albertine branch,
+and the fortunes of the house cannot be said to have been fully restored
+until the Treaty of Tilsit, in 1807, ratified as its main provisions were
+by that of Vienna, seven years later.</p>
+
+<p>Coming down to more recent times, and to the Queen&#8217;s more immediate
+ancestry, we find the old spirit which these brave Saxon princes
+represented in the stirring medi&aelig;val and Reforming days, abundantly
+maintained in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, and notably so on
+the field of battle, in the great wars with which the names of Frederick
+the Great, Maria Theresa, Suwarow, and Napoleon are associated. Francis
+Josias was twenty-second of the line, and the Queen&#8217;s
+great-great-grandfather. His great-grandson, the late King Leopold, says
+of him, that he was &#8220;much looked up to.&#8221; He was a tall and powerful man,
+but disfigured by having lost an eye at tennis, a game then very popular
+on the Continent. One of his grandsons, a Prince Frederick Josias, served
+with distinction in the Seven Years&#8217; War, in one of the battles of which
+he was shot through the hand. He was subsequently employed in high
+positions by the Empress<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_6" id="Page_6">[Pg 6]</a></span> Maria Theresa, and made a great name for himself
+against the Turks. Suwarow and he extricated the Emperor Joseph, the son
+of the Empress, from utter failure, and conquered the Principalities. He
+afterwards fought against Dumouriez in the Netherlands, and gained the
+battle of Neerwinden, in 1793, near Tirlemont; &#8220;one of the greatest
+battles of modern history,&#8221; says his nephew, King Leopold, a most
+competent authority on the subject. He says that, but for the inaction of
+the Dutch contingent, and the insane attempt of the Duke of York to
+conquer Dunkirk, the allies, after this victory, which cleared the
+Netherlands of the French, might as easily have marched upon Paris as the
+forces of Wellington and Blucher did after Waterloo.</p>
+
+<p>The Queen&#8217;s grandfather, suffering early in life from exceedingly bad
+health, was cast in a much less energetic mould, but his character was
+eminently benevolent and loveable, and he had a knowledge and love of the
+fine arts, which Prince Albert, in the highest degree of all his
+descendants, inherited. The Queen&#8217;s grandmother, who was of the
+Reuss-Ebersdorff family, was equally warm-hearted, possessed a powerful
+mind, and &#8220;loved her grandchildren most tenderly.&#8221; We shall have much to
+say of her in subsequent pages.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">THE HOUSE OF SAXE-COBURG.</div>
+
+<p>Of the Queen&#8217;s aunts, one, after declining many eligible offers in her own
+princely rank, married Count Mensdorff-Pouilly, a French emigrant of the
+Revolution, who entered the Austrian service, and became the father of the
+well-known Austrian statesman, Count Arthur Mensdorff, who was the bosom
+friend of Prince Albert from his earliest infancy until his untimely
+death. A second married the reigning Duke of Wurtemburg, and occupied<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_7" id="Page_7">[Pg 7]</a></span> for
+many years a very influential position in Russia, her husband being
+brother of the Empress Catherine (the second of that name), and maternal
+uncle of the Emperors Alexander and Nicholas. The third daughter of the
+house herself became a Russian Grand Duchess; she was wedded at the age of
+fifteen to the Grand Duke Constantine. The marriage was an inharmonious
+one, and in 1802 the young pair agreed to separate. Both husband and wife
+were acquitted of all blame; Leopold, the brother of the latter,
+attributes the sad event to &#8220;the shocking hypocrisy of the
+Empress-mother,&#8221; in the absence of which &#8220;things might have gone on.&#8221; The
+Queen&#8217;s mother, who was christened Victoire (or Victoria) Marie Louise,
+was the youngest of the four sisters. Besides Duke Ernest, the father of
+Prince Albert, the Queen had two other maternal uncles. One was Frederick
+George, who married a great heiress, the Hungarian Princess of Kohary. His
+son became the consort of Donna Maria II. of Portugal; his grandson, the
+present King of Portugal, is the Queen&#8217;s first cousin once removed, and
+the second cousin of her children. Her other uncle was the late King of
+the Belgians, whose career is a portion of the history of our
+grandfathers&#8217;, our fathers&#8217;, and our own times, and is so intimately
+associated with the life and fortunes of Her Majesty as to merit separate
+treatment in a succeeding chapter, and elsewhere incidentally in the
+course of our narrative.</p>
+
+
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p><p>&nbsp;</p>
+<hr style="width: 50%;" />
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_8" id="Page_8">[Pg 8]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_II" id="CHAPTER_II"></a>CHAPTER II.</h2>
+<p class="title">THE GREATEST OF THE MODERN COBURGS.</p>
+
+<div class="note"><p class="hang">Romantic Career of Prince Leopold of Saxe-Coburg, the Queen&#8217;s
+Uncle&mdash;his Continuous, Kind, and Fatherly Care of his Orphaned
+Niece&mdash;The Duchy of Coburg held by Napoleon&mdash;Sufferings of the Ducal
+Family&mdash;A Temptation resisted&mdash;The Tide turned&mdash;Leopold&#8217;s Popularity
+in England&mdash;Betrothal and Marriage to the Princess Charlotte of Wales.</p></div>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">PRINCE LEOPOLD OF SAXE-COBURG.</div>
+
+<p>Born in the year 1790, Prince Leopold was a soldier and in the saddle when
+he was fifteen years of age. In 1805, that war broke out between Napoleon
+and Austria, in which the power of the Kaiser was so near being destroyed.
+The health of the Duke Francis, Leopold&#8217;s father, was fast failing him,
+and the tremendous sorrows and sufferings inflicted by the victorious
+French upon Germany, hastened the rapidity of his descent to the grave.
+Ernest, the eldest son, and Leopold hurriedly left Coburg to join the
+Russian army in Moravia. Their only other brother was already in an
+Austrian regiment of Hussars. Ere Leopold could flesh his sword,
+Austerlitz had been fought and lost, and Austria was thoroughly crippled.
+He returned to Coburg to witness his father&#8217;s death. The French were in
+possession of the town and Duchy, and when they learned that the new Duke
+was with their Prussian foe, they appointed a military intendant, a M.
+Vilain&mdash;in nature as well as in name, so Leopold afterwards recorded. The
+Ducal family were reduced to such<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_9" id="Page_9">[Pg 9]</a></span> straits, that they depended for their
+very sustenance upon the clandestine benefactions of the Governmental
+subordinates, surlily winked at by their French masters. The Duchess set
+off on a journey to Warsaw to endeavour to propitiate Napoleon; but she
+was permitted to proceed no farther than Berlin, as Napoleon hated such
+visits. She returned baffled to Coburg, which remained &#8220;une possession
+Fran&ccedil;aise.&#8221; The Peace of Tilsit, among its other provisions,
+&#8220;reintegrated&#8221; Coburg; but, through the greed and treachery of Prussia,
+the stipulated arrangements were never fulfilled. On the ratification of
+the Peace, Duke Ernest came to Coburg for the first time to assume his
+Ducal power and dignity.</p>
+
+<p>As a matter of policy, Leopold, with other German Princes, now visited
+Napoleon at Paris, where he was courteously received. On his return from
+Paris, early in 1808, he nearly died of scarlet fever. After a very tardy
+and painful recovery, he went, at the end of the year, to the Congress of
+Erfurth, to which he had been summoned by the Czar Alexander. He tried
+there to secure to his brother his undiminished territorial possessions,
+and succeeded in making such a favourable impression upon Napoleon that he
+would have done so, but for the impolitic excessiveness of his brother&#8217;s
+claims, and the apathetic manner in which the Czar supported them. The war
+with Russia came on, in which he eagerly desired to serve against the
+French; but Napoleon caused it to be known that if he did so his brother
+would be held responsible; so he had to abide in inglorious and detested
+ease. Napoleon made him tempting offers to enter his service, and would
+have been more incensed at his persistent refusal than he was, but<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_10" id="Page_10">[Pg 10]</a></span> for
+the friendly intercession of Josephine and Queen Hortense, her daughter,
+who were both very friendly to the young Prince.</p>
+
+<p>Meanwhile he turned his eminent talents for diplomacy to good account. He
+persuaded Bavaria to return to his brother portions of Coburg territory
+which that state unjustly held, and removed the galling pain of the
+Bavarian flag floating over villages within four English miles of the town
+of Coburg itself.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">THE PRINCESS CHARLOTTE.</div>
+
+<p>In 1812 Napoleon&#8217;s frightful war with Russia broke out. Napoleon summoned
+the subject and enfeebled German Princes to Dresden. Duke Ernest was
+compelled to go, and Leopold also was cited to the gathering, but he went
+to Vienna, and then to Italy, to keep out of the way. It would have been
+now most dangerous to decline the French service, and he was determined at
+all costs not to enter it. &#8220;Germany,&#8221; said he, &#8220;was, at the beginning of
+1812, in the lowest and most humiliating position; Austria and Prussia
+sunk to be auxiliaries; everybody frightened and submissive, except Spain,
+supported by England.&#8221; But Napoleon&#8217;s reverses in Russia soon followed,
+and they electrified all Germany into new courage. The Duke of Coburg
+posted off to Berlin to endeavour to stimulate the perplexed, vacillating,
+and timorous Prussian King into manly and decided action. The other
+brother, Ferdinand, went to Vienna on a similar errand. Leopold hied him
+to Munich to stir up the Crown Prince of Bavaria, afterwards King Louis.
+They were all moderately successful, and Leopold hastened to Kalisch, in
+Poland, being the first German Prince to join the Army of Liberation. He
+was equally honoured and gratified by being appointed a <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_11" id="Page_11">[Pg 11]</a></span>Major-General by
+the Czar. He was present at the hard-fought but indecisive battles of
+Lutzen and Bautzen. There followed an armistice, and a conference at
+Prague, with a view to a definite settlement. This the Prince attended. He
+was the only person admitted to the presence of the Emperor of Austria,
+and spent much of his time with the plenipotentiaries Metternich,
+Humboldt, Ansted, Gentz, and others. The negotiations broke off, and
+hostilities were resumed. At the decided defeat which the French general
+Vandamme sustained, shortly before the crowning victory of Leipsic,
+Leopold commanded all the allied cavalry, and distinguished himself the
+more that he was the only general in the field who knew the country. He
+was present, and in high command, at Leipsic, where Germany was finally
+freed. After the fight, the Grand Duke Constantine accompanied him to
+Coburg, visiting the relatives of the wife from whom he was now separated,
+and who lived and died in retirement in Switzerland. Amongst others they
+visited the future Duchess of Kent, then Princess of Leiningen, her first
+husband being still alive. Shortly afterwards Constantine and Leopold
+rejoined the army in Switzerland, where Leopold tried hard, but
+ineffectually, to effect a reconciliation between his sister and her
+husband. Leopold subsequently entered Paris at the head of the cavalry;
+his eldest brother procured the evacuation of Mayence by its French
+garrison. The three brothers all met in Paris, from which Leopold
+proceeded, in the suite of the Czar, to the great triumphant gathering of
+the Allied Sovereigns in London. Now for the first time he met his future
+bride, the Princess Charlotte, only child of the Prince Regent, and heir
+to<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_12" id="Page_12">[Pg 12]</a></span> the throne. His splendid continental career already propitiated her,
+as it did all the British people, in his favour. The project of a
+matrimonial union between the gallant young general and the still more
+youthful princess was warmly taken up by the leading men in power,
+including Wellington, his brothers, and Castlereagh. The Prince Regent
+alone was opposed to the project. He was irritated by his daughter&#8217;s
+repugnance to the Prince of Orange, who was destined by him to be his
+son-in-law, and by her recent flight from Carlton House to the residence
+of her mother. Leopold, however, decidedly succeeded in winning the
+affections of the lady herself, and the nation was delighted at the
+project. The Dukes of York and Kent, too, warmly encouraged his suit. On
+his return home he found that his youngest sister had been unexpectedly
+left a widow, and he arranged the guardianship and pecuniary affairs of
+the future mother of England&#8217;s Queen. At the Congress of Vienna, whither
+he went to plead the cause of his brother, his amazing sagacity and tact
+induced the negotiators to make a very satisfactory arrangement of
+frontier. This he settled, to the great chagrin of Humboldt, the Prussian
+envoy, who, with the Prussian Court and people generally, seems to have
+been extremely spiteful towards the little principality, their near
+neighbour.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">A ROYAL MARRIAGE.</div>
+
+<p>Leopold was not at Waterloo&mdash;fought so near the capital of his future
+kingdom. He was posted in Alsace in command of an army of observation,
+which, of course, was never needed for action. Leopold went alone to
+Paris, with the leave of the Czar, still animated by the purpose of
+advancing his brother&#8217;s pretensions; Prussia having failed to carry out
+the rectifications of frontier<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_13" id="Page_13">[Pg 13]</a></span> enacted at Vienna the year before. He
+succeeded in this object, and hopes of the highest nature were engendered
+about an affair still nearer to his heart. Wellington and Castlereagh
+treated him with marked and significant deference. And through the kind
+intervention of the good-hearted and simple-minded Duke of Kent, he
+received from his ladye-love some pleasant tokens of continued affection
+and renewed pledges of staunch fidelity. He was strongly recommended to
+repair to England and renew and prosecute his wooing in person; but he
+very astutely declined, thinking it unwise to &#8220;brave&#8221; the Prince Regent.
+He went, instead, to Vienna, to act as groomsman at the wedding of his
+brother Ferdinand with the great Hungarian heiress whose love he had won;
+and from thence to Berlin, persistently to enforce his brother&#8217;s twice
+recognised and sanctioned rights. At Berlin he received a welcome
+invitation to England from the Regent, and a most satisfactory letter of
+&#8220;explanation&#8221; from Lord Castlereagh. He arrived in London in February,
+1816. Castlereagh at once took him to Brighton, where the Regent was. He
+received his daughter&#8217;s wooer most graciously. The old queen and her three
+daughters posted after Leopold from London, and in a family council the
+marriage was definitely agreed on. The young couple were married in May,
+amid the joyful acclamations of the whole nation.</p>
+
+
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p><p>&nbsp;</p>
+<hr style="width: 50%;" />
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_14" id="Page_14">[Pg 14]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_III" id="CHAPTER_III"></a>CHAPTER III.</h2>
+<p class="title">PARENTAGE AND BIRTH OF QUEEN VICTORIA.</p>
+
+<div class="note"><p class="hang">How the Princess Victoria came to be Heiress Presumptive to the
+Throne&mdash;Death of the Princess Charlotte&mdash;Marriages of the Royal
+Dukes&mdash;Of the Duke of Kent&mdash;Birth of the Princess Alexandrina
+Victoria&mdash;Prediction of George IV.&mdash;Death of the Duke of Kent&mdash;His
+Character&mdash;His Liberal Opinions&mdash;Public Condolence with the Widow and
+Orphan&mdash;Early Life of the Duchess of Kent.</p></div>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">MARRIAGE OF THE DUKE OF KENT.</div>
+
+<p>On the 6th of November, 1817, the hopes of the nation, which had so fondly
+rested upon the happy union between the Princess Charlotte and Prince
+Leopold, were fatally blasted by Her Royal Highness&#8217;s death, shortly after
+her delivery of a still-born child. Never in our history was a blow felt
+more deeply and personally by all the nation, than this bereavement. The
+death of the Princess Charlotte severely and most painfully disappointed
+the nation in its general expectation with regard to the much desired
+succession to the throne in the person of herself and her heirs. The Duke
+of Cumberland, who was hated by all, was the only married younger son of
+the king, and there was a general desire that the other royal princes,
+especially the popular and estimable Dukes of Kent and Sussex, should seek
+out suitable partners. The Duke of Kent rightly felt that the House of
+Brunswick was dear to the English people, that the nation had a very
+strong desire that the question of succession should be placed beyond
+doubt,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_15" id="Page_15">[Pg 15]</a></span> and that, considering the uncertainty of the chances of life, and
+of leaving offspring, it was clearly his duty to marry. Indeed, he had
+already, ere the untimely death of his niece, offered his hand and heart
+to the widowed Princess of Leiningen. The Princess Charlotte tenderly
+loved her uncle Kent, who had done so much to promote the attainment of
+the wishes of her own heart, and she did all she could to promote the
+marriage of her uncle with the sister of her husband. But the position of
+the Princess of Leiningen as guardian of her two children occasioned
+delays; and no unimportant matter was the fact that if she re-married, she
+would sacrifice a jointure of nearly &pound;5,000 a year, while the Duke of Kent
+was punished by the Court for his free and outspoken Liberal opinions by
+being restricted to a very meagre pecuniary allowance from the Tory
+Parliament. At last, however, all minor difficulties were smoothed over.
+On the 13th of May, a message was brought down to Parliament, announcing
+that &#8220;the Prince Regent had given his consent to a marriage between the
+Duke of Kent and Her Serene Highness Mary Louisa Victoria, daughter of the
+Duke of Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld, widow of Enrich Charles, Prince of
+Leiningen, and sister of Prince Leopold.&#8221; Of all the royal marriages, this
+was the one which the heart of the country went most thoroughly along
+with. The Duke of Kent never disguised&mdash;indeed, he openly proclaimed&mdash;his
+attachment to the principles of the popular party; and the fact of the
+close relationship of his intended wife to Prince Leopold was another
+strong recommendation. The marriage was celebrated, first according to the
+Lutheran rites in Germany, on the 29th May, 1818, and, on the 13th of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_16" id="Page_16">[Pg 16]</a></span>
+July following, by the Archbishop of Canterbury; the Prince Regent, on the
+latter occasion, giving away the bride. In the same summer, the Dukes of
+Clarence and Cambridge had married. The Duke of Sussex, whose affections
+and sympathies were otherwise engaged, declined to contract a foreign
+alliance; but he took the liveliest interest in the marriage of his
+favourite brother Kent, as he also did in the future welfare and
+prosperity of his niece.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">CHRISTENING OF THE PRINCESS VICTORIA.</div>
+
+<p>After the English marriage, the young couple sojourned for a brief period
+at Claremont, the residence which had been selected by the Princess
+Charlotte, and which Prince Leopold continued to occupy. They then, guided
+chiefly by motives of economy, for their means were very small, travelled
+on the Continent, from which they returned for the accouchement of the
+Duchess. Both prospective parents were desirous that their child should be
+&#8220;born a Briton.&#8221; They arrived at Dover on the 23rd of April, 1819, and on
+the 24th of May the Princess Alexandrina Victoria was born at Kensington
+Palace. She was born in the presence of the Dukes of Sussex and
+Wellington, the Archbishop of Canterbury, the Marquis of Lansdowne, Earl
+Bathurst, Mr. Canning, Mr. Vansittart, and the Bishop of London. The Duke
+of Kent wept for joy, and the fact that his infant was a daughter did not
+in the least degree diminish his delight. The Duchess rapidly recovered,
+and the beauty and symmetry of the infant Princess were spoken of with
+admiration by all who had an opportunity of observing her. Shortly after
+this happy event, the Duke of Kent attended a drawing-room, from which,
+and similar Court ceremonies, the estrangement between himself and the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_17" id="Page_17">[Pg 17]</a></span>
+Regent had for some time kept him away. His brother was most affable, and
+invited him to dine the next day, when he predicted that his little niece
+would be Queen some time. This certainly seemed improbable shortly
+afterwards, for Clarence, who was nearer in succession than Kent, became
+the father of two daughters by his wife, Adelaide. But they both died
+young, thereby opening the succession to the child of the Duke of Kent,
+and verifying the Regent&#8217;s prophecy. The child was christened with great
+privacy, on the 24th of June, in the Palace of Kensington. The royal gold
+font was fetched from the Tower, and fitted up in the grand saloon of the
+palace. Under the direction of the Lord Chamberlain, the draperies were
+removed from the Chapel Royal, St. James&#8217;s. The Archbishop of Canterbury,
+assisted by the Bishop of London, administered the holy office; the Prince
+Regent, the members of the Royal Family, and other illustrious visitors
+were present. The sponsors were the Prince Regent, the Czar Alexander
+(represented by the Duke of York as proxy), the Queen Dowager of
+Wurtemberg (represented by the Princess Augusta), and the Duchess Dowager
+of Coburg (represented by the Duchess of Gloucester). A brilliant evening
+party filled the saloons of the happy parents.</p>
+
+<p>The Duke and Duchess still made Claremont their chief home. But the winter
+of 1819-20 set in with unusual severity, and they went to Sidmouth, in the
+hope of escaping its trying severity. From Sidmouth the Duke made an
+excursion to visit Salisbury Cathedral, where he caught a slight cold. On
+his return to Sidmouth it became alarming, and the Duchess sent off in
+haste to her brother, who was visiting at Lord Craven&#8217;s.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_18" id="Page_18">[Pg 18]</a></span> Soon after his
+arrival, the Duke breathed his last. While his cold still slightly
+affected him, he had gone for a long walk, on the 13th of January, with
+Captain Conroy, and had his boots soaked through with wet. He neglected to
+change his boots and stockings until he dressed for dinner, being
+attracted by the smiles of his infant princess, with whom he sat for some
+time playing. Before night he had a sensation of cold and hoarseness, but
+the doctors were not alarmed, and merely prescribed mild medicaments and a
+good night&#8217;s rest. But the symptoms of fever rapidly increased, and, in
+spite of much blood-letting, he died ten days from the date of the
+recurrence of his cold. He met his death with pious resignation. The
+Duchess was most indefatigable in her attentions, and personally performed
+all the offices of the sick-bed. For five successive nights she never took
+off her clothes, and she struggled to prevent his seeing the agony of her
+apprehensions, never leaving the bed-side but to give vent to her bursting
+sorrow. The presence of her brother was a great comfort to her, both
+before and after the moment of death. It was fortunate, indeed, that
+Leopold was in this country, &#8220;as the poor Duke had left his family
+deprived of all means of existence.&#8221; So did Leopold himself testify many
+years afterwards.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">THE DUKE OF KENT.</div>
+
+<p>The Duke of Kent, although unpopular in his youth on account of his
+strictness as a military disciplinarian, became in later days much
+beloved. His stature was tall, and his appearance noble and manly. His
+manner was engaging, and his conversation animated. He possessed an exact
+memory, varied information, a quick and masculine intellect. In many of
+his tastes and habits he closely resembled his father. He was an early
+riser,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_19" id="Page_19">[Pg 19]</a></span> and a close economist of time; temperate in eating; though fond of
+society, indifferent to wine; a kind master, punctual correspondent, and
+exact man of business; a steady friend, and an affectionate brother. He
+was peculiarly exempt in his youth from those extravagances and vices with
+which the names of some of his brothers were so painfully associated. He
+was in his early life, which he spent in active and laborious military
+service, a pattern of prudence, economy, and industrious habits. He
+incurred no unnecessary expenses, and made few debts, although his annual
+allowance was only &pound;1,000 for some years after he had attained his
+majority. He delighted in books, education, charity, and the promotion of
+all useful arts, and was a model son, husband, and father. He was a
+staunch and uncompromising advocate of those liberal opinions which it is
+so well known that his daughter inherits, which she displayed so
+unreservedly early in her reign, but the prominent expression of which
+prudence and constitutional restraints convinced her that it was advisable
+to keep in the background, as her mind grew and ripened. The Duke of
+Kent&#8217;s political views will be gathered from the following extract from a
+speech at a banquet, in which he replied to the toast of the junior
+members of the Royal Family:&mdash;&#8220;I am a friend of civil and religious
+liberty, all the world over. I am an enemy to all religious tests. I am a
+supporter of a general system of education. All men are my brethren; and I
+hold that power is only delegated for the benefit of the people. These are
+the principles of myself and of my beloved brother, the Duke of Sussex.
+They are not popular principles just now; that is, they do not conduct to
+place or office. <i>All</i> the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_20" id="Page_20">[Pg 20]</a></span> members of the Royal Family do not hold the
+same principles. For this I do not blame them; but we claim for ourselves
+the right of thinking and acting as we think best, and we proclaim
+ourselves, with our friend Mr. Tierney, &#8216;members of His Majesty&#8217;s loyal
+Opposition.&#8217;&#8221; These words give a precise and definite idea of the
+character of this clear-headed, good-hearted, shrewd, practical, and
+unpretending man.</p>
+
+<p>Prince Leopold accompanied his widowed sister and the little orphan from
+Sidmouth to Kensington Palace. The weather was most severe, and the
+journey a trying one. The Houses of Parliament remembered, with respectful
+solicitude, the widowed and isolated state of the Duchess. Both Houses
+voted addresses of condolence. That from the Commons was presented by
+Lords Morpeth and Clive. She appeared in person, though unable to suppress
+her grief, with the infant Victoria in her arms, to receive the
+deputation. She presented the babe to the deputed Members, and pointed to
+her as the treasure to whose preservation and improvement she was resolved
+to dedicate her best energies and fondest love. The interview was
+exceedingly touching. A true woman, the Duchess could not conceal the
+intensity of her widowed grief; but that did not overshadow her maternal
+affection, and she recognised and spoke courageously of her duties, her
+responsibilities, and her high resolves. Public feeling and national
+anxiety accompanied her into her domestic privacy, and all classes of
+society took the deepest interest in all her movements.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">THE DUCHESS OF KENT.</div>
+
+<p>The Queen, indeed, owes much to her mother, who lived long enough to see
+her daughter&#8217;s grandchildren.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_21" id="Page_21">[Pg 21]</a></span> The Duchess of Kent had been brought up
+under the immediate care and superintendence of her illustrious mother,
+whose character we have already described. She had shared the youthful
+lessons of her brother Leopold&mdash;a source, doubtless of great intellectual
+profit. In 1802, when she was but sixteen, much against her own wish, and
+only in compliance with the entreaties of her beloved father&mdash;who wished
+to see his only surviving daughter married, in such troublesome times, ere
+the end of his precarious and sickly life came&mdash;she became the wife of the
+Prince of Leiningen, a man eight-and-twenty years her senior. The union
+was most inappropriate and unwise. Her husband was repugnant in person and
+manners. He failed either to secure her confidence or contribute to her
+happiness. Yet she fulfilled her duties as a wife and mother in so
+exemplary a manner, from her marriage to her husband&#8217;s death, in 1814,
+that the breath of slander never sullied her fair fame. Indeed, by the
+purity of her life, the manner in which she discharged her maternal
+duties, and the graceful suavity of her manners, she did much to ennoble
+the character of the House of Leiningen, which her husband had done much
+to lower. Her marriage with the Duke of Kent was one of unmistakable
+affection, and was a very happy one. Their tastes were similar; but her
+meekness and tact had a beneficial influence in mitigating a certain stern
+and abrupt brusqueness which he partly inherited from his father, and
+partly derived from the camps and garrison towns in which his youth was
+spent. The simplicity and tender unaffectedness of her manners&mdash;a
+peculiarity distinctive of the highest class of well-bred German
+women&mdash;and her fascinating combination of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_22" id="Page_22">[Pg 22]</a></span> gentleness with gaiety, not
+only won and bound, by daily increasing ties, the affections of her
+husband, but of all those who had the good fortune to become personally
+acquainted with her admirable life and disposition.</p>
+
+
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p><p>&nbsp;</p>
+<hr style="width: 50%;" />
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_23" id="Page_23">[Pg 23]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_IV" id="CHAPTER_IV"></a>CHAPTER IV.</h2>
+<p class="title">FIRST YEARS OF CHILDHOOD.</p>
+
+<div class="note"><p class="hang">Old Memories of Kensington Palace&mdash;Enlargements of the Structure by
+William III., Anne, Queen Caroline, and the Duke of Sussex&mdash;Maids of
+Honour&mdash;Rank and Beauty in the Gardens&mdash;Wilberforce and the Infant
+Princess&mdash;Victoria at Ramsgate&mdash;A Picture of Victoria when Five Years
+old&mdash;Her Physical Training&mdash;Popularity as a Child&mdash;Her Youthful
+Charities&mdash;A Narrow Escape from Death&mdash;Early Development of Quick
+Intelligence&mdash;Anecdotes&mdash;Love of Nature&mdash;Proneness to Self-will&mdash;But
+Counterbalanced by Candour&mdash;Waggishness&mdash;A Portrait of the
+Child-Princess by Leigh Hunt.</p></div>
+
+
+<p>The infancy, girlhood, and budding womanhood of the Princess Victoria were
+chiefly spent at the Royal Palace of Kensington. It was her mother&#8217;s fixed
+residence, but the family were much at Claremont, where the Queen
+testifies that she spent the happiest days of her childhood. There were
+frequent trips made, too, to various watering-places; and, as the Princess
+grew in years, visits were paid at the country houses of some of the
+nobility. Leigh Hunt, in his exquisite book of gossip entitled &#8220;The Old
+Court Suburb,&#8221; thus happily describes the more salient and prominent
+features of the somewhat sombre region of the Queen&#8217;s up-bringing:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>In vain we are told that Wren is supposed to have built the south
+front, and Kent (a man famous in his time) the east front. We can no
+more get up any enthusiasm about it as a building, than if it were a
+box or a piece of cheese. But it possesses a Dutch solidity; it can<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_24" id="Page_24">[Pg 24]</a></span>
+be imagined full of English comfort; it is quiet; in a good air; and,
+though it is a palace, no tragical history is connected with it: all
+which considerations give it a sort of homely, fireside character,
+which seems to represent the domestic side of royalty itself, and thus
+renders an interesting service to what is not always so well
+recommended by cost and splendour. Windsor Castle is a place to
+receive monarchs in; Buckingham Palace to see fashion in; Kensington
+Palace seems a place to drink tea in: and this is by no means a state
+of things in which the idea of royalty comes least home to the good
+wishes of its subjects. The reigns that flourished here, appositely
+enough to this notion of the building, were all tea-drinking
+reigns&mdash;at least on the part of the ladies; and if the present Queen
+does not reign there, she was born and bred there, growing up quietly
+under the care of a domestic mother; during which time, the
+pedestrian, as he now goes quietly along the gardens, fancies no
+harsher sound to have been heard from the Palace windows than the
+&#8220;tuning of the tea-things,&#8221; or the sound of a pianoforte.</p></div>
+
+<div class="sidenote">KENSINGTON PALACE.</div>
+
+<p>The associations of Kensington Palace are almost entirely with the earlier
+Hanoverian reigns; the later Georges neglected it. Rumour hath it that
+this royal domain originated in the establishment of a nursery for the
+children of Henry VIII. If it were so, Elizabeth and Victoria must have
+been brought up on the same spot; but the tradition is not well supported.
+Its first ascertained proprietor was Heneage Finch, Speaker of the House
+of Commons at the accession of the First Charles, who built and occupied
+only a small nucleus of the present structure, which was enlarged from
+time to time by most of its successive occupants, but with no pretension,
+and without much plan. From the second Earl of Nottingham, the grandson of
+Finch, William III. bought the house and grounds. The latter he enlarged
+to the extent of twenty-six acres. To these Anne added thirty, and to
+these in turn Queen Caroline, wife of George II., added three hundred.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_25" id="Page_25">[Pg 25]</a></span>
+The house had been the while proportionately growing. Its last expansion
+was contributed by the Duke of Sussex.</p>
+
+<p>The gardens were pedantically squared to Dutch uniformity by William of
+Orange, and the semblance of a Court which he held in this Palace was
+correspondingly gloomy and dismal. The most singular visitor ever received
+by William was the Czar Peter, who drove hither <i>incognito</i> in a hackney
+coach, on his arrival in London, and was afterwards entertained here with
+some slight show of state. In Anne&#8217;s time, the palace and gardens were
+little livelier than in William&#8217;s. The Queen hedged herself in behind
+absurd <i>chevaux-de-frise</i> of etiquette, and the court chroniclers of the
+period record little else than eating and drinking. Swift and Prior,
+Bolingbroke and Marlborough, Addison and Steele, nevertheless, lent
+occasional gleams of brightness and dignity to the otherwise sombre scene.</p>
+
+<p>The most fascinating and memorable association of Kensington Palace is in
+connection with the Courts of the first two Georges, and of the son of the
+latter, Frederick Prince of Wales. These associations are specially
+connected with the bevies of frolicsome, and sometimes frail, maids of
+honour, who now live in the pages of Pope and Gay, of Hervey and Walpole.
+Chief among them was the gay, sprightly, and irresistible Molly Leppell,
+who resisted, in a manner equally indignant and comical, the degrading
+overtures of the coarse-souled George II. She married Hervey, the most
+effeminate and egregious dandy of his time. Chesterfield thus toasted her
+in a ballad on the beauties of the Court;&mdash;</p>
+
+<p class="poem"><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_26" id="Page_26">[Pg 26]</a></span>
+Oh! if I had Bremen and Varden,<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">And likewise the Duchy of Zell,</span><br />
+I&#8217;d part with them all for a farden,<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">To have my dear Molly Leppell.</span></p>
+
+<p>Caroline of Anspach, consort of Frederick, Prince of Wales, introduced the
+habit of promenading in gorgeous costume in the gardens, first on
+Saturday, then on Sunday, afternoons. By degrees the quality were admitted
+as well as the royal family and their immediate attendants. The liberty
+was gradually extended to the general public. Hence it was that Kensington
+Gardens became in time as open to all comers as are the royal parks. These
+gorgeous promenades ceased with the commencement of the last malady of
+George III. It was in allusion to the stately train of attendant beauties
+who accompanied the Princess Caroline of Wales, that Tickell wrote&mdash;</p>
+
+<p class="poem">Each walk, with robes of various dyes bespread,<br />
+Seems from afar a moving tulip bed,<br />
+Where rich brocades and glossy damasks glow,<br />
+And chintz, the rival of the showery bow.<br />
+Here England&#8217;s Daughter, darling of the land,<br />
+Sometimes, surrounded with her virgin band,<br />
+Gleams through the shades. She, towering o&#8217;er the rest,<br />
+Stands fairest of the fairer kind confess&#8217;d;<br />
+Form&#8217;d to gain hearts that Brunswick&#8217;s cause denied,<br />
+And charm a people to her father&#8217;s side.</p>
+
+<p>With the death of George II., the glory departed from Kensington. No
+future English King favoured or frequented it. George III. never resided
+in the Palace, and it was altogether too dull and homely for his eldest
+son. He was willing enough that his bookish brother Sussex, and his steady
+brother Kent, should abide in it;<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_27" id="Page_27">[Pg 27]</a></span> and, as one writer puts it, depicting
+the &#8220;first gentleman in Europe&#8221; in a light far from pleasing, but for the
+use of which we fear there was too much foundation&mdash;&#8220;He was well content
+to think that the staid-looking house and formal gardens rendered the spot
+a good out-of-the-way sort of place enough, for obscuring the growth and
+breeding of his niece and probable heiress, the Princess Victoria, whose
+life, under the guidance of a wise mother, promised to furnish so
+estimable a contrast to his own.&#8221;</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">WILBERFORCE AND THE PRINCESS.</div>
+
+<p>It was in the rooms, rich with such varied associations as those, some few
+of which we have cited, and surrounded by the remarkable collection of
+pictures, chiefly by Byzantine and early German painters&mdash;that England&#8217;s
+future Queen grew up from babyhood to womanhood. Amongst the very earliest
+notices of the infant Princess is the following, which we cite from a
+letter written by Wilberforce to his friend, Hannah More, on the 21st
+July, 1820. He says:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>In consequence of a very civil message from the Duchess of Kent, I
+waited on her this morning. She received me with her fine animated
+child on the floor by her side, with its playthings, of which I soon
+became one. She was very civil; but, as she did not sit down, I did
+not think it right to stay above a quarter of an hour; and there being
+but a female attendant and footman present, I could not well get up
+any topic, so as to carry on a continued discourse. She apologised for
+not speaking English well enough to talk it; but intimated a hope that
+she might talk it better and longer with me at some future time. She
+spoke of her situation [this was, probably, in reference to the cold
+treatment of her and hers by George IV.], and her manner was quite
+delightful.</p></div>
+
+<p>Four years later, the Duchess and the little Princess paid one of many
+visits to Ramsgate: and it would<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_28" id="Page_28">[Pg 28]</a></span> appear that the Duchess of Kent had
+already succeeded in being able to talk English &#8220;better and longer&#8221; with
+Wilberforce &#8220;at some future time;&#8221; for an eye-witness, who was familiar
+with all the group, witnessed the following scene. It was a fine summer
+day: too warm anywhere but on the shore of the sea, the breeze from which
+sufficiently moderated the temperature. A little girl, with a fair, light
+form, was sporting on the sands in all the redolence of youth and health.
+Her dress was simple&mdash;plain straw bonnet, with a white riband round the
+crown, a coloured muslin frock, and &#8220;as pretty a pair of shoes, on as
+pretty a pair of feet, as I ever remember to have seen from China to
+Kamschatka&#8221;&mdash;so testifies the authority from whom we quote. The child had
+two companions&mdash;her mother and William Wilberforce. The latter looked as
+lovingly on the child as did her mother. His kindly eye followed with
+tender interest her every footstep, and he was evidently meditating on the
+great destiny which was in store for her, when her mother, less
+meditative, more concerned with the affairs of the present, suddenly
+observed that her daughter had got her shoe&#8217;s wetted by a breaker. She
+waved her hand, and Victoria, obedient to the signal, at once rejoined her
+mother and her friend. Perhaps another motive might have been at work in
+the mother&#8217;s breast; for immediately the child had joined the elders,
+Wilberforce took her hand in both of his, and addressed to her some kindly
+words, doubtless of excellent counsel, for the blue eyes of the girl
+looked fixedly at her venerable instructor, and the devoted mother glanced
+from one to the other, evidently interested and affected by the contrast.
+Wilberforce was no wearisome restrainer of the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_29" id="Page_29">[Pg 29]</a></span> buoyancy of youth; a few
+minutes later, he and his young companion were standing at the margin of
+the tide, watching the encroachments of each new breaker, and the
+dexterity with which a pet Newfoundland dog brought bits of stick out of
+the waves.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">MORAL TRAINING.</div>
+
+<p>During the earliest years of her childhood, Victoria does not seem to have
+been harassed with book-learning&mdash;a most wise and excellent omission. In
+1823, the Dowager Duchess of Coburg wrote to her daughter&mdash;&#8220;Do not yet
+tease your little puss with learning; she is so young still.&#8221; The Queen&#8217;s
+mother followed the good advice; it was the cultivation of the heart of
+her child at which she first strove. Above everything, any approach to
+pride or hauteur was discouraged. The convictions equally with the natural
+temperament of the Duchess, led her to regard such a quality as specially
+to be avoided. She was trained to be courteous, affable, lively, and to
+put social inferiors perfectly at their ease. In her juvenile sea-side and
+other excursions, it was constantly observed by every one that the faces
+of the bathing-women, and others of the same class, whose services were
+needed, lighted up with genuine, unaffected gladness whenever the young
+Princess appeared. The following little picture deserves to be reproduced,
+without tampering with the colours of its portrayer:&mdash;&#8220;As she proceeded up
+the High Street from the sands, there sat on the low step of a closed shop
+an aged Irishwoman, pale, wan, dejected, sorrowful, her head bent forward,
+and whilst all nature was gay, she looked sickly, sad, and famishing.
+Whether she was too depressed to beg, or too exhausted at that moment to
+make the effort, I cannot tell, but she asked<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_30" id="Page_30">[Pg 30]</a></span> for no alms, and even
+looked not at the passers-by. The young Princess was attracted by her
+appearance, and spoke to the Duchess: &#8216;I think not,&#8217; were the only words I
+heard from her mamma; and, &#8216;Oh, yes, indeed!&#8217; was all I could catch of the
+youthful reply. I have no doubt the Duchess thought the old woman was not
+in need of relief, or would be offended by the offer of alms; but the
+Princess had looked under her bonnet, and gained a better insight into her
+condition. There was a momentary pause; the Princess ran back a few steps
+most nimbly, and with a smile of heartfelt delight placed some silver in
+the hands of the old Irishwoman. Tall and stately was the poor creature,
+and as she rose slowly with clasped hands and riveted features, she
+implored the blessing of Heaven on the &#8216;English lady.&#8217; She was so taken by
+surprise by this unexpected mark of beneficence on the part of she knew
+not whom, that she turned over her sixpences again and again, thanked the
+Virgin, as well as the &#8216;young lady,&#8217; a thousand times, and related to
+those who stopped to hear her exclamations, the &#8216;good luck&#8217; that had come
+upon her.&#8221;</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">THE QUEEN&#8217;S CHILDHOOD.</div>
+
+<p>While still not a year old, and ere her father&#8217;s death, the intensity of
+interest which the people took in the safety and welfare of the Princess
+had been strongly displayed in the universal satisfaction which was
+expressed at her providential escape from being wounded, if not killed, in
+consequence of some boys shooting at birds near the temporary residence of
+the Duke at Sidmouth. Some of the shots penetrated the window of the
+nursery, and passed very near the child&#8217;s head. This universal interest
+became yet deeper, when, after the lapse of two or three years, both of
+the daughters of the Duke of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_31" id="Page_31">[Pg 31]</a></span> Clarence having died, and there being no
+probability of any issue in the line of either the Dukes of York or
+Clarence, she became the eventual successor to the throne, in the event of
+the deaths of these two elder brothers of her father. It was now learned
+with delight that she passed through the ordinary maladies of childhood
+favourably, and that her recovery from them was speedy. The public had
+ample opportunities afforded them of observing her growing and healthful
+strength; and all commented with pleasure upon the circumstance that she
+was not kept secluded from the view and observation of the people, that
+her rides and walks were generally in public, that she was growing up
+towards maturity in the sight of the nation, and as the child of the
+country. It was further a matter of great general rejoicing that those who
+were selected, even from the earliest period, to surround her person were
+of the most irreproachable character, and that moral worth was sought for
+in her preceptors even more than brilliant attainments.</p>
+
+<p>It is especially worthy of notice that the Duke and Duchess of Clarence,
+their hearts not being made in the slightest degree callous or soured by
+their own melancholy bereavements and the disappointment of their fondest
+hopes, formed and displayed for their niece a sincere and warm attachment.
+They took from the very first the warmest interest in all her vicissitudes
+and illnesses; and when they became King and Queen their elevated
+positions only seemed to increase the warmth of their regard, and the
+copious flow of their practical kindness. It was, therefore, no wonder
+that when, under Providence, Victoria became Queen she treated the Queen
+Dowager with most unequivocal respect and esteem, regarding<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_32" id="Page_32">[Pg 32]</a></span> her
+suggestions with deference, and her wishes with loving compliance.</p>
+
+<p>Spite of many sinister rumours, the Princess grew up strong and vigorous.
+Her mother was especially careful to fortify her constitution, and so to
+prepare it to encounter the hard work and manifold anxiety which are the
+inevitable lot of a British sovereign. Many there were&mdash;some of them with
+ends of their own to gain&mdash;who kept prophesying that &#8220;the daughter of the
+Duke of Kent would never attain her legal majority;&#8221; or, that &#8220;she would
+never marry;&#8221; again, that &#8220;she could never become the mother of a family.&#8221;
+Much alarm was caused by these prognostications. For one thing was above
+all others ardently desired by the nation&mdash;that the Duke of Cumberland,
+who stood next in succession after the Princess, should never become King
+of England. Even if he had not been an object of something more than
+suspicion, it was universally desired that England should never again
+(after King William&#8217;s death) be united with Hanover under one monarch. But
+as facts became known by degrees about the Princess, as her healthy face
+and agile frame became familiar in London, and in many parts of the land,
+the apprehensions died away, and the &#8220;frail, delicate, sickly child,&#8221;
+whose fabricated ailments had been made the subject of so much sham
+sympathy, was looked upon as a fabulous invention.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">LEARNING TO READ.</div>
+
+<p>It soon became known that her physical and mental characteristics were of
+a nature directly the opposite of what had been so industriously reported.
+She was extremely active, and had a healthy love of sports and games. She
+had an inquiring mind, not only restless in the pursuit, but clear in the
+comprehension of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_33" id="Page_33">[Pg 33]</a></span> knowledge. She soon developed, too, much decision of
+character. Seemingly incapable of fatigue, she was the first to begin, and
+the last to leave off, a study, a romp, a game, a new duty, and equally
+eager to resume an old occupation. This peculiarity, it was gladly
+observed, was an inheritance from her father; but her mother also set her
+a congenial example of industry and perseverance. Such stories as the
+following were gleefully passed throughout the land from lip to lip. While
+she was learning her alphabet, she, doubtful of the utility of being so
+tormented, ejaculated&mdash;&#8220;What good this?&mdash;what good this?&#8221; She was told
+that &#8220;mamma could know all that was contained in the great book on the
+table because she knew <i>her</i> letters, whilst the little daughter could
+not.&#8221; This was quite enough, and the young acolyte of the alphabet cried
+out, &#8220;I learn, too&mdash;I learn, too&mdash;very quick.&#8221; And she did become rapidly
+mistress of her letters. Her mother sought to teach her to be satisfied
+with simple pleasures, and here she was a most apt pupil. Once, when she
+was so young that she could not express what she felt, she dragged her
+uncle Clarence to the window to observe a beautiful sunset. To her uncle
+Leopold, too, she was constantly pointing out objects of natural beauty,
+on which he invariably improved the opportunity by giving her prompt and
+clear explanations of the phenomena which evoked her admiration. Her
+engrossing passion, indeed&mdash;as was that of her future husband&mdash;was for
+cabinets of natural history, menageries, museums, &amp;c. For pictures she had
+an equal love, and one of the first acquirements in which she became
+proficient was sketching from nature.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_34" id="Page_34">[Pg 34]</a></span>Perhaps the greatest danger she incurred, and the one which her mother had
+to take the greatest pains to avert, was the likelihood that her
+independent decision of character, which she derived from the Hanoverian
+half of her ancestry, might degenerate into stubbornness and self-will.
+But her natural sense of justice, and ready openness to clear conviction,
+proved an admirable counterpoise. With peculiar ingenuousness of
+character, she unreservedly admitted an error the very instant she
+perceived it. Once, for example, when on a visit to Earl Fitzwilliam, a
+bosom friend of her father, the party were walking in the grounds, and she
+had run on in advance. An under-gardener cautioned her not to go down a
+certain walk, as, said he, in his provincial dialect, the rain had made
+the ground &#8220;slape.&#8221; &#8220;Slape! slape!&#8221; cried she, rapidly, and in the true
+George III. style; &#8220;and pray, what is &#8216;slape?&#8217;&#8221; &#8220;Very slippery, miss&mdash;your
+Royal Highness&mdash;ma&#8217;am,&#8221; replied he. &#8220;Oh! that&#8217;s all,&#8221; she replied; &#8220;thank
+you,&#8221; and at once proceeded. She had not advanced many yards, when she
+came down heavily to the ground. The Earl had been observing all that had
+passed, from a few yards&#8217; distance, and he cried out, &#8220;There! now your
+Royal Highness has an explanation of the term &#8216;slape,&#8217; both theoretically
+and practically.&#8221; &#8220;Yes, my lord,&#8221; she somewhat meekly said, &#8220;I think I
+have. I shall never forget the word &#8216;slape.&#8217;&#8221; On a similar occasion, when
+cautioned not to frolic with a dog whose temper was not very reliable, she
+persisted in doing so, and he made a snap at her hand. Her cautioner ran
+solicitously, believing that she had been bitten. &#8220;Oh, thank you! thank
+you!&#8221; said she. &#8220;You&#8217;re right, and I am<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_35" id="Page_35">[Pg 35]</a></span>
+wrong; but he didn&#8217;t bite me&mdash;he only warned me. I shall be careful in future.&#8221;</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">JUVENILE ANECDOTES.</div>
+
+<p>The following incident shows that at least on some occasions a keen spirit
+of waggishness entered strongly into her self-will. When first she took
+lessons on the piano, she objected strongly to the monotonous fingering,
+as she had formerly done to A B C. She was, of course, informed that all
+success as a musician depended upon her first becoming &#8220;mistress of the
+piano.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Oh, I am to be mistress of my piano, am I?&#8221; asked she. To that the reply
+was a repetition of the statement.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Then what would you think of me if I became mistress at once?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;That would be impossible. There is no royal road to music. Experience and
+great practice are essential.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Oh, there is no royal road to music, eh? No royal road? And I am not
+mistress of my pianoforte? But I will be, I assure you; and the royal road
+is this&#8221;&mdash;at the same time closing the piano, locking it, and taking the
+key&mdash;&#8220;There! that&#8217;s being mistress of the piano! and the royal road to
+learning is, never to take a lesson till you&#8217;re in the humour to do it.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>After the laugh which her joke had provoked in herself and others had
+subsided, she at once volunteered to resume the lesson.</p>
+
+<p>We cannot more fitly conclude this chapter, ere we proceed to travel an
+important stage further in our attempt to trace the youthful days of the
+Queen, than by presenting a picture of her, as she appeared at this period
+of her life to the genial eyes of Leigh Hunt,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_36" id="Page_36">[Pg 36]</a></span> to whom we have been
+already indebted at the commencement of this chapter:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>We remember well the peculiar kind of personal pleasure which it gave
+us to see the future Queen, the first time we ever did see her, coming
+up a cross path from the Bayswater Gate, with a girl of her own age by
+her side, whose hand she was holding, as if she loved her. It brought
+to our mind the warmth of our own juvenile friendships, and made us
+fancy that she loved everything else that we had loved in like
+measure&mdash;books, trees, verses, Arabian tales, and the good mother who
+had helped to make her so affectionate. A magnificent footman, in
+scarlet, came behind her, with the splendidest pair of calves, in
+white stockings, that we had ever beheld. He looked somehow like a
+gigantic fairy, personating, for his little lady&#8217;s sake, the grandest
+footman he could think of; and his calves he seemed to have made out
+of a couple of the biggest chaise-lamps in the possession of the
+godmother of Cinderella. As the Princess grew up, the world seemed
+never to hear of her except as it wished to hear&mdash;that is to say, in
+connection with her mother; and now it never hears of her but in
+connection with children of her own, and her husband, and her mother
+still [this was written in 1855], and all good household pleasures and
+hospitalities, and public virtues of a piece with them. May life ever
+continue to appear to her what, indeed, it really is to all who have
+eyes for seeing beyond the surface&mdash;namely, a wondrous fairy scene,
+strange, beautiful, mournful too, yet hopeful of being &#8220;happy ever
+after,&#8221; when its story is over; and wise, meantime, in seeing much
+where others see nothing, in shedding its tears patiently, and in
+doing its best to diminish the tears around it.</p></div>
+
+
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p><p>&nbsp;</p>
+<hr style="width: 50%;" />
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_37" id="Page_37">[Pg 37]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_V" id="CHAPTER_V"></a>CHAPTER V.</h2>
+<p class="title">EDUCATION OF THE PRINCESS VICTORIA.</p>
+
+<div class="note"><p class="hang">Additional Grant by Parliament for the Maintenance and Education of
+the Princess&mdash;Wise Lessons learned at her Mother&#8217;s Knees&mdash;A Visit to
+George IV. at Windsor&mdash;Assiduous Pursuit of Knowledge&mdash;Accession of
+William IV.&mdash;Victoria becomes next in succession to the Crown&mdash;Regency
+Bill&mdash;Satisfaction of the good Grandmother at Coburg&mdash;Her Death&mdash;Joy
+of Victoria at the Elevation of her Uncle to the Belgian
+Throne&mdash;Parliamentary Inquiry into the Progress of her
+Education&mdash;Satisfactory Report in Response&mdash;Presented at Court&mdash;Great
+Ball on her Twelfth Birthday at St. James&#8217;s Palace&mdash;Court Scandal and
+Baseless Rumours&mdash;The Duchess of Northumberland appointed
+Governess&mdash;The Princess and the Poet Southey.</p></div>
+
+
+<p>The time had now arrived when, in the opinion, not only of the private
+friends of the Duchess of Kent, but of the Ministers of the Crown, it was
+held that a more liberal provision should be made for the increasing cost
+of the training of the Princess, than the very moderate annual allowance
+which the Duchess of Kent had as yet received. This matter was formally
+brought before Parliament on the occasion of the Princess attaining her
+sixth birthday. Up to this date, and for some little time subsequently to
+it, King George IV. seems to have hardly paid the slightest heed to his
+niece and ultimate successor. On her fifth birthday, Prince Leopold, who
+throughout filled a true father&#8217;s place, gave a banquet in her honour, at
+which most of the members<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_38" id="Page_38">[Pg 38]</a></span> of the English Royal Family, and the Prince
+Leiningen, son of the Duchess of Kent and half-brother of Victoria, were
+present. On this occasion, the child was much admired for her frankness,
+quickness, and talent, but especially for her deep attachment to her
+mother. Her mother took occasion to impress upon her the consideration
+that such attentions as those which were then shown her were rendered in
+the hope that she would cultivate the qualities and graces which alone
+could make her a worthy and acceptable ruler of the British empire. &#8220;It is
+not you,&#8221; said she, &#8220;but your future office and rank which are regarded by
+the country; and you must so act as never to bring that office and that
+rank into disgrace or disrespect.&#8221; And when the Duchess took her child to
+see for the first time the statue which had just been erected at the top
+of Portland Place to her father&#8217;s memory, she was careful to make her know
+and feel that &#8220;dear papa&#8217;s likeness was placed there, not merely because
+he was a prince, but because he was a good man, was kind to the poor,
+caused little boys and girls to be taught to read and write, helped to get
+money from good people to cure the sick, the lame, the blind, the deaf,
+and did all he could to make bad people good.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>In May, 1825, the sixth birthday of the Princess arrived. It became
+desirable, not merely to extend the sphere of her knowledge, but to
+introduce her to society at unavoidable expense; and, when she appeared in
+public and took trips in the country, to surround her with some of the
+splendour which properly belonged to her position. Accordingly, Lord
+Liverpool, the Premier, presented a Message from the King, requesting that
+some<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_39" id="Page_39">[Pg 39]</a></span> provision should be made for the Princess. His lordship spoke in the
+highest terms of the Duchess of Kent; eulogised her for having supported
+and educated her daughter without making any application to Parliament;
+and demonstrated, that her education must, from that date, be much more
+wide and costly. He proposed an additional grant of &pound;6,000 per annum to
+the Duchess, to continue throughout the minority of her daughter. The
+House of Lords cordially acquiesced in the proposal. In the Lower House,
+Mr. Brougham, although uniting mother and daughter in one common eulogy,
+objected to the amount proposed. Mr. Hume supported him, suggesting an
+annuity increasing from year to year; but, on a division, the original
+proposal was carried by a majority of fifty.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">GEORGE IV. AND THE PRINCESS VICTORIA.</div>
+
+<p>Only after this formal act of national recognition does it appear that the
+King deigned to turn his personal attention in the direction of his niece.
+The year after, we find the Duchess of Coburg writing to her daughter, and
+referring to the fact that she had seen by the English papers, that &#8220;His
+Majesty, Her Royal Highness the Duchess of Kent, and the Princess
+Victoria, went on Virginia Water.&#8221; &#8220;The little monkey,&#8221; she writes, &#8220;must
+have pleased him. She is such a pretty, clever child.&#8221; It was reported at
+the time that the King, on the occasion of this visit to Windsor, shared
+the general delight at the intelligence and sprightliness of his charming
+little niece. He caused her to dine in state with him, and when he asked
+her what tune she would like the band to play during dinner, she
+courteously and na&iuml;vely replied, &#8220;God save the King.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>The years intervening until 1830 were passed in<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_40" id="Page_40">[Pg 40]</a></span> almost complete quietude
+and seclusion by the Princess; her education being now most assiduously
+pursued.</p>
+
+<p>The year 1830 made an important difference in the position of the
+Princess. By the death of George IV., the Duke of Clarence became King,
+and&mdash;the Duke of York having died in 1827&mdash;she now stood next in direct
+succession to the throne. In the last month of the year a Regency Bill was
+passed, of which these were the chief provisions:&mdash;In the event of Queen
+Adelaide bearing a posthumous child, Her Majesty should be guardian and
+Regent during the minority. If that event should not occur, the Duchess of
+Kent was to be guardian and Regent during the minority of her daughter,
+the Princess Victoria, the heiress-presumptive. That Princess should not
+marry while a minor, without the consent of the King; or, if he died,
+without the consent of both Houses. When the Report of the Regency Bill
+was brought up, Lord Lyndhurst moved and carried a clause to the effect
+that in case the Duchess of Kent should marry a foreigner in the lifetime
+of His Majesty, but without his consent, she should, by that act, forfeit
+all pretensions to the Regency.</p>
+
+<p>The Duke of Buckingham, in his &#8220;Courts and Cabinets of William IV. and
+Victoria,&#8221; thus remarked on this proviso:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>The position of the Princess attracted towards her Royal Highness the
+solicitude and sympathy of all classes of the people. A proper
+consideration of her chance of succeeding to the throne showed that
+there was much at stake, and the bitter disappointment caused by the
+untimely fate of the last female heiress presumptive, gave deeper
+feeling to the interest with which she was regarded. It was desirable
+that her youth should be, as much as possible, watched over to protect
+it from all evil contingencies, and though there could not be a better
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_41" id="Page_41">[Pg 41]</a></span>guardian for the Princess than the one nature had provided her with,
+the anxiety of a nation demanded precautions that, under other
+circumstances, would have been considered totally unnecessary. We can
+now (1861) afford to smile on the jealous affection with which Her
+Royal Highness was fenced round thirty years ago.</p></div>
+
+<div class="sidenote">THE QUEEN&#8217;S GRANDMOTHER.</div>
+
+<p>The satisfactory settlement of the Regency question gave great
+satisfaction to the good grandmother at Coburg. She wrote to her daughter,
+on receipt of the news&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>I should have been sorry if the Regency had been given into other
+hands than yours. It would not have been a just return for your
+constant devotion and care to your child, if this had not been done.
+May God give you wisdom and strength to do your duty, if called upon
+to undertake it. May God bless and protect my little darling!&mdash;If I
+could but once see her again! The print you have sent to me is not
+like the dear picture I have; the quantity of curls hide the
+well-shaped head, and make it look too large for the lovely little
+figure.</p></div>
+
+<p>It was not fated that the Duchess of Coburg should ever see her
+granddaughter again; she died within a twelvemonth of writing the above.
+Her latest letters to her daughter were characterised by a peculiar warmth
+of affection for the Princess. Writing in the summer of 1830, on the
+occasion of Victoria&#8217;s birthday, she said&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>My blessings and good wishes for the day which gave you the sweet
+Blossom of May! May God preserve and protect the valuable life of that
+lovely flower from all the dangers that will beset her mind and heart!</p></div>
+
+<p>And when the news of the death of George IV. reached her, she wrote&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>God bless Old England, where my beloved children live, and where the
+sweet Blossom of May may one day reign! May God yet for many years
+keep the weight of a crown from her young head, and let the
+intelligent, clever child grow up to girlhood, before this dangerous
+grandeur devolves upon her!</p></div>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_42" id="Page_42">[Pg 42]</a></span>England owes a deep debt of gratitude to this excellent and intelligent
+woman, for to her we are indebted for that training of her daughter, which
+fitted that daughter to train in turn, for us and for our advantage, Queen
+Victoria.</p>
+
+<p>An event of considerable influence upon the well-being and happiness of
+the Queen we must not omit to chronicle, ere we pass onwards in the course
+of our narrative. Prince Leopold had been designated by the great
+guaranteeing Powers as the ruler of the newly emancipated state of Greece.
+He was prepared to accept the position. This distressed his niece, who had
+been brought up under his kindly tutelage from her birth; but
+circumstances which it does not concern our purpose to dwell upon, induced
+Leopold to break off the Greek negotiation. Shortly after, to the great
+delight of Victoria, he was nominated by the Powers, and accepted by his
+future subjects, as King of the Belgians. This ensured his being
+constantly comparatively near to his niece. How frequent were his visits
+to England, as long as his life lasted, no resident in London needs to be
+informed; up till within the last few years, his face was almost as
+familiar in the parks as those of the members of the Queen&#8217;s own family.
+He often appeared in London suddenly, and without announcement, having
+been summoned, it was generally believed, on such occasions, to consult
+with the Queen on some point of imminent moment. Such summonses he always
+responded to with instant alacrity.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">ABSURD RUMOURS.</div>
+
+<p>In the year 1831, the public became anxious to know how the education of
+the heiress-presumptive to the throne progressed; what was the nature of
+her studies,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_43" id="Page_43">[Pg 43]</a></span> and which she preferred and most diligently pursued. Prompt,
+responsive, and satisfactory statements were rendered. It appeared that
+since the accession of King William, her tuition had been almost entirely
+entrusted to English teachers. Mr. Amos instructed her in the principles
+of the English Constitution, Mr. Westall in drawing; she had made
+considerable progress in Latin, and could read Horace with fluency. It was
+further stated that her love of music was enthusiastic, and that it was
+the orchestral rather than the dramatic attraction that caused her to
+frequent the theatres so much as she did. It was remarked that, on the
+occasion of the coronation of William IV., which took place on the 8th of
+September, neither the Princess nor her mother were present. Their absence
+was explained by the announcement, that the health of the Princess
+rendered a sojourn in the Isle of Wight necessary. Prudent persons held
+that, even had it been otherwise, her tender years and peculiar position
+rendered her absence preferable to her presence. She was but twelve years
+old, and it was commonly stated that only a year before had it been deemed
+wise <i>fully</i> to make her aware of the regal destiny which was before her.
+Gossip-mongers&mdash;a whole host of whom circulated the most absurd rumours
+about the Princess from her most tender years until long after she had
+become Queen&mdash;alleged that the real reason of her absence was the fact
+that her proper place in the ceremony was not assigned to her. The real
+truth we believe to have been as follows. Since the accession of her uncle
+Clarence, Victoria had been plunged into a round of gaiety which did not
+at all comport either with her years or a certain fragility of health,
+which now for a<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_44" id="Page_44">[Pg 44]</a></span> short time succeeded the fine animal power and spirits of
+the years preceding. She had been presented at the first drawing-room held
+by Queen Adelaide, the most magnificent that had been held since the
+presentation of Charlotte, Princess of Wales, on the occasion of her
+marriage. This was her first appearance in state. She arrived with her
+mother, attended by the Duchess of Northumberland, Lady Charlotte St.
+Maur, Lady Catherine Jenkinson, the Honourable Mrs. Cust, Lady Conroy, the
+Baroness Lehzen, Sir J. Conroy, and General Wetherall. Her dress was made
+entirely of articles manufactured in Great Britain, and consisted of a
+simple, modest, and becoming blonde frock. She was the great object of
+interest present, stood on the left of the King, and contemplated the
+<i>&eacute;lite</i> of her future subjects with a dignified amiability which charmed
+every one. On her twelfth birthday, in the same year, she was overwhelmed
+with presents; amongst others, two beautiful ponies, presented by the
+Duchess of Gordon, which became especial pets. The Queen gave a juvenile
+ball in her honour, which Queen Victoria has often talked of in later
+times, as the scene which of all others made the deepest impression on her
+childish imagination. Spite of all this, and of the notorious and profuse
+kindness with which the King and Queen Adelaide had always treated her,
+many were found to believe that they were jealous of, and meant to slight
+her. The truth was, that the Duchess of Northumberland, who, at the
+suggestion of the King himself, had been appointed to the high and
+important office of governess to the Princess, began to be alarmed at the
+consequences of so much festivity and excitement. She objected to her
+frequent attendance at drawing-rooms, and also<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_45" id="Page_45">[Pg 45]</a></span> recommended absence from
+the fatiguing coronation ceremony.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">THE PRINCESS AND SOUTHEY.</div>
+
+<p>The selection of this lady for the important office which she filled was a
+wise one, and the public judgment approved it. She possessed great
+personal attractions, mental powers of unusual range, and the highest
+rank. The appointment was by no means a nominal one, or one merely of
+state. Her visits to Kensington Palace were constant, and she frequently
+remained there all day. On one occasion, while her Grace was instructing
+her pupil, Southey called, and was greeted by the Princess and the
+<i>gouvernante</i> very warmly. He conversed for some time with the ladies;
+first on poetry, then on history. He afterwards used to state with pride,
+that the Princess told him that she read his prose and poetical
+compositions with equal delight. The &#8220;Life of Nelson&#8221; especially charmed
+her. &#8220;That,&#8221; she said, &#8220;is a delightful book indeed; and I am sure I could
+read it half a dozen times over.&#8221; The gossip-mongers also alleged that the
+Duchess endeavoured to give a political bias to the education of the
+Princess. Some uneasiness was created at this. But when the matter was
+properly inquired into, it was ascertained that, neither in the selection
+of books to be studied, nor in the remarks made upon their text, was the
+slightest party colour given to the education of the royal pupil of the
+Duchess. It was while under the care of this lady that the Princess
+acquired her well-known admirable horsemanship. To Fozard, the best
+riding-master of the day, was entrusted her tuition in riding. She soon
+became distinguished by the ease of her carriage, and her truly royal air
+and demeanour. This was a common<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_46" id="Page_46">[Pg 46]</a></span> subject of admiring remark by
+distinguished foreigners; amongst others, by Count Orloff, to whom, in
+1832, the Duchess of Kent gave a splendid banquet. The Princess, after she
+was removed from the active care of the Duchess of Northumberland, gave
+the best proof of her gratitude and sense of the services she had rendered
+her, by keeping up with her Grace a constant epistolary correspondence.
+Wherever she went, in the many tours through England which she made while
+passing through her teens, she wrote letters to the Duchess describing
+whatever interested and instructed her in what she saw. This
+correspondence was really a voluntary continuation of her education.</p>
+
+
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p><p>&nbsp;</p>
+<hr style="width: 50%;" />
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_47" id="Page_47">[Pg 47]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_VI" id="CHAPTER_VI"></a>CHAPTER VI</h2>
+<p class="title">THE PRINCESS IN HER TEENS.</p>
+
+<div class="note"><p class="hang">Visits paid to many parts of England&mdash;Love of Cathedrals and Church
+Music&mdash;Trip to North Wales and the Midland Counties&mdash;Visit to a Cotton
+Mill&mdash;To Oxford&mdash;Gala Day at Southampton&mdash;Interview with the Young
+Queen of Portugal&mdash;Confirmation of the Princess&mdash;Tour to the
+North&mdash;York Musical Festival&mdash;At Ramsgate with the King of the
+Belgians&mdash;A Noble Deed at Tunbridge Wells.</p></div>
+
+
+<p>In the year subsequent to the coronation of King William, the Duchess of
+Kent and her daughter spent much time in making visits to various parts of
+England. We have already seen that they were in the Isle of Wight at the
+date of the coronation. The same year, they spent some time at Worthing,
+and visited Lord Liverpool and his daughters at Buxted Park, whence they
+proceeded to Malvern, where their liberal relief of distress caused them
+to be much beloved. While at Malvern, they visited the cathedral at
+Worcester. Cathedrals were especial favourites with the Princess, and
+Church music gratified her as much as ecclesiastical architecture. To the
+public institutions of the cathedral cities which she visited she was an
+invariable benefactress, and willingly beggared herself of all her
+pocket-money that she might be the better able to meet the demands of art,
+science, literature, and poverty upon her benevolence. This year they also
+visited Hereford and Bath, and were magnificently entertained by the Earls
+Somers and Beauchamp, at Eastnor Castle and Maddresfield Court.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">AN AUTUMNAL TOUR.</div>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_48" id="Page_48">[Pg 48]</a></span>In 1831, they sojourned for a time at Claremont, in the Isle of Wight, and
+at Weymouth. The next year chronicled a more extensive autumnal tour than
+any hitherto undertaken. To North Wales they repaired first. Having seen
+its romantic beauties, they reached the ancient city of Chester on the
+17th of October and on entering the cathedral were respectfully received
+and courteously addressed by the Bishop. The Duchess of Kent thus replied
+to the welcome of the Prelate:&mdash;&#8220;I cannot better allude to your good
+feeling towards the Princess than by joining fervently in the wish that
+she may set an example in her conduct of that piety towards God, and
+charity towards man, which is the only sure foundation either of
+individual happiness or national prosperity.&#8221; From Chester they proceeded
+to Eaton Hall, the palatial residence of the Grosvenors and thence to
+Chatsworth, the still more splendid abode of the Cavendish family. From
+Chatsworth they went to Belper, where they examined the cotton mills of
+the Messrs. Strutt, and were most cordially received by the numerous
+factory hands. Mr. James Strutt, by means of a model, explained to the
+Princess the several processes of cotton-spinning, which she listened to
+with keen attention and ready apprehension. The Queen retained a lively
+and fragrant recollection of this visit; and, years after, she created the
+son of her <i>cicerone</i> a peer, by the title of Lord Belper. The week
+following they visited Hardwicke Hall, Chesterfield, and Matlock. Thence
+they proceeded to Shugborough, the seat of the Earl of Lichfield. Their
+next honoured entertainer was the Earl of Shrewsbury, at Alton Towers.
+While there, they visited Lichfield Cathedral<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_49" id="Page_49">[Pg 49]</a></span> and graciously received
+congratulatory addresses from the clergy and corporation. Their next stage
+was the seat of Lord Liverpool, who was one of the staunchest friends of
+the Duchess of Kent, of whom his daughter, Lady Catherine Jenkinson, was
+one of the Ladies-in-waiting. Proceeding homewards, they honoured with
+successive visits Earl Powis, the Hon. R. H. Clive, M.P., the Earls of
+Plymouth and Abingdon. From the seat of the latter they went to Oxford,
+which city they entered with an escort of yeomanry. The Vice-Chancellor
+presented an appropriate address in the Theatre, which was crowded with
+the celebrities of the University. The Duchess of Kent made the following
+answer:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>We close a most interesting journey by a visit to this University,
+that the Princess may see, as far as her years will allow, all that is
+interesting in it. The history of our country has taught her to know
+its importance by the many distinguished persons who, by their
+character and talents, have been raised to eminence by the education
+they have received in it. Your loyalty to the King, and recollection
+of the favour you have enjoyed under the paternal sway of his house,
+could not fail, I was sure, to lead you to receive his niece with all
+the disposition you evince to make this visit agreeable and
+instructive to her. It is my object to insure, by all means in my
+power, her being so educated as to meet the just expectation of all
+classes in this great and free country.</p></div>
+
+<p>Their Royal Highnesses returned to Kensington on the 9th of November.</p>
+
+<p>In 1833, the rambles of mother and daughter did not extend beyond the
+south coast; Portsmouth, Weymouth, and the Isle of Wight being the
+respective halting-places. While residing at Norris, East Cowes, they
+attended the ceremony of opening the new landing-pier at the fast rising
+port of Southampton. A steamer<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_50" id="Page_50">[Pg 50]</a></span> towed the Royal yacht from Cowes into
+Southampton Water, where were waiting a deputation, representing the
+corporation of the town, in an eight-oared barge, with one of the
+town-sergeants standing with the silver oar in the leads. The deputation
+having stated the object of the day&#8217;s ceremonial, the Duchess of Kent
+replied to the effect that she desired her daughter early to become
+attached to works of utility. They were then rowed ashore, amid the cheers
+of 25,000 spectators, and entertained at luncheon; subsequently, being
+requested to name the pier, the Duchess designated it the &#8220;Royal Pier.&#8221;
+Countless festivities followed in the evening, and &#8220;the townspeople were
+almost as proud of the presence of the Princess, as of the completion of
+their pier.&#8221;</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">THE PRINCESS AND A WIDOWED ACTRESS.</div>
+
+<p>The year 1834 was that in which the Princess was confirmed. This holy rite
+was administered by the Archbishop of Canterbury, in the Chapel Royal, St.
+James&#8217;s, in July. Next month, mother and daughter visited Tunbridge Wells;
+the month following they went northwards, visited the Archbishop of York
+at Bishopsthorpe, and attended the grand musical festival in his
+cathedral. On their homeward route, they were entertained by the Earls of
+Harewood and Fitzwilliam, and the Duke of Rutland; passed some time with
+the King and Queen of the Belgians, at Ramsgate, and finally visited the
+Duke of Wellington at Walmer Castle. An incident which occurred during
+their stay at Tunbridge, must not be omitted from our biography. The
+husband of one of the actresses in the small theatre of the place died,
+leaving an impoverished wife, who was just about to become a mother. The
+fact came to the knowledge of the Princess, and she applied to her mother<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_51" id="Page_51">[Pg 51]</a></span>
+for aid. She at once gave &pound;10 to her daughter, who added an equal sum from
+her own purse; she became her own almoner, hastened to the afflicted
+woman, conversed with her, and continued to make inquiries about her
+condition. Nor did this end her care. When she came to the throne, three
+years later, she at once sent to the poor woman a kindly intimation that
+an annuity of &pound;40 would be paid to her for life.</p>
+
+<p>Another series of visits, and renewed intercourse with the much-loved
+uncle and his young Orleanist wife at Ramsgate, filled the autumnal months
+of 1835.</p>
+
+
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p><p>&nbsp;</p>
+<hr style="width: 50%;" />
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_52" id="Page_52">[Pg 52]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_VII" id="CHAPTER_VII"></a>CHAPTER VII.</h2>
+<p class="title">EARLY DAYS OF PRINCE ALBERT.</p>
+
+<div class="note"><p class="hang">Birth&mdash;Melancholy Story of his Mother&mdash;Brought up under the Care of
+his two Excellent Grandmothers&mdash;His Winning Ways as a Child&mdash;His
+Tutor, Florsch&uuml;tz&mdash;The Brothers, Ernest and Albert&mdash;Visit to Brussels,
+and its Beneficial Effects&mdash;Hard Study&mdash;Tour through Germany,
+&amp;c.&mdash;First Visit to England, and Meeting with Victoria&mdash;Studies at
+Brussels&mdash;Enters the University of Bonn&mdash;Tour to Switzerland and
+Italy&mdash;Public Announcement of Betrothal&mdash;Leaves Coburg and Gotha for
+his Marriage.</p></div>
+
+
+<div class="sidenote">THE INFANT COUSINS VICTORIA AND ALBERT.</div>
+
+<p>Albert, the second son of Duke Ernest I. of Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld, and his
+wife, the Princess Louise, daughter of the Duke of Saxe-Gotha-Altenburg,
+was born at the Rosenau, a charming summer residence belonging to the
+Duke, about four miles from Coburg, on the 26th of August, 1819. His
+mother is described as handsome, though of very diminutive proportions,
+fair, with blue eyes; and her son Albert, whom she idolised, closely
+resembled her. She was clever and entertaining; yet her marriage was an
+unhappy one, and a separation took place by mutual consent in 1824, after
+which date the Duchess never saw her children. Two years later the
+separation was turned into a divorce. The Prince never forgot her, but
+spoke of her to his dying day with much tenderness, and the very first
+gift which he ever made to the Princess Victoria was a little pin which
+his mother had given him. Not until the Prince was almost a young man did
+his mother die. When<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_53" id="Page_53">[Pg 53]</a></span> she died her race became extinct, save in the
+persons of her two sons. Many years later, her remains were brought to
+Coburg, and laid in the family mausoleum beside the Duke and his second
+wife. This mausoleum was not completed until 1860, in which year Queen
+Victoria deposited a votive wreath on the tomb of the mother of her
+husband. Prince Albert&#8217;s paternal grandmother, the Duchess Dowager of
+Coburg, in writing to her daughter, the Duchess of Kent, announcing
+Albert&#8217;s birth, lauded his beauty, and&mdash;little thinking how the fortunes
+of the two infant cousins were to be intertwined hereafter&mdash;thus concluded
+her communication:&mdash;&#8220;How pretty the <i>May Flower</i> (the Princess Victoria,
+born the preceding May) will be when I see it in a year&#8217;s time. Siebold
+cannot sufficiently describe what a dear little love it is. Une bonne
+fois, adieu! Kiss your husband and children.&#8221; Siebold was an accoucheuse
+who had attended at the births of both the children. On the 19th of
+September the Prince was christened, and thus named:&mdash;Francis Charles
+Augustus Albert Emmanuel.</p>
+
+<p>The young Prince seems to have been adored as a child by all, whether
+relatives or others, who came in contact with him. &#8220;He leads captive,&#8221;
+said his fond mother, when he was two years old, &#8220;all hearts by his beauty
+and gentle grace.&#8221; After the sad separation of his father from his mother,
+the Prince was brought up largely under the care of his father&#8217;s mother,
+whom the Queen describes, from personal recollection, as &#8220;a most
+remarkable woman, with a most powerful, energetic, almost masculine mind,
+accompanied with great tenderness of heart, and extreme love for nature.&#8221;
+Of an<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_54" id="Page_54">[Pg 54]</a></span> evening she used to tell to her two grandchildren, Ernest and
+Albert, the stories of Sir Walter Scott&#8217;s novels, and, when they were old
+enough, employed them in writing letters to her dictation. She fondly
+described Albert, when he was not yet two years old, by the pet,
+diminutive name, &#8220;Alberinchen.&#8221; And she says&mdash;&#8220;With his large blue eyes
+and dimpled cheeks, he is bewitching, forward, and quick as a weasel. He
+can already say everything.&#8221; The step-maternal grandmother of the Prince
+too, second wife of his maternal grandfather, was sensible, kindly, and
+good, and took an interest in the children by no means inferior to that
+displayed by their own grandmother. With the former lady they spent very
+much of their time in their early years, at Gotha, and at her mansion in
+the vicinity of that town.</p>
+
+<p>When Albert was not yet four years old he, with his brother, was removed
+to the care of a tutor, Herr Florsch&uuml;tz, who most admirably discharged his
+duties, which he continued to fulfil until his pupils had become young
+men. With the assistance of masters for special subjects, he conducted the
+whole of their early educational training, and continued to control their
+studies until they left the University of Bonn. The two brothers, spite of
+the difference of about a twelvemonth in their ages, pursued all studies
+in common, and the closest brotherly love and amity united them from first
+to last.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">BOYHOOD OF PRINCE ALBERT</div>
+
+<p>The younger Prince was not nearly so robust as his brother, but his
+intellect was more vigorous, and his force of will decidedly greater; &#8220;he
+always held,&#8221; said his uncle Leopold, &#8220;accordingly, a certain sway over
+his elder brother, who rather kindly submitted to it.&#8221; The<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_55" id="Page_55">[Pg 55]</a></span> Princes were
+not much, in their early years, with their father, who was much from home,
+especially when settling the junction of the duchy of Gotha with his own
+of Coburg. The former he succeeded to partly in right of his wife, and
+partly by a mutual compact of exchange of territory, entered into with
+other reigning princes of the old Saxon stock. This period was passed by
+the Princes at Rosenau, with their tutor, varied by visits to the mansions
+of the two grandmothers.</p>
+
+<p>In a memorandum drawn up by Count Arthur Mensdorff, cousin of the Prince,
+he describes the young Albert when about ten years of age, at which period
+the cousins contracted a friendship which lasted unimpaired until the
+Prince&#8217;s death. His disposition was mild and benevolent; nothing could
+make him angry, except anything unjust or dishonest. He was never wild or
+noisy, and his favourite study was natural history. He was a good mimic,
+and had a keen sense of the ludicrous; but he never pushed a joke to the
+extent of hurting one&#8217;s feelings. His moral purity was as conspicuous as
+the meekness of his disposition.</p>
+
+<p>In November of 1831, the Princes suffered a great bereavement in the death
+of their admirable grandmother, the Duchess Dowager of Coburg; she died in
+the arms of her two eldest sons. She had, from an early period, formed the
+wish that a marriage should be contracted between her two grandchildren,
+Albert and Victoria.</p>
+
+<p>In 1832, the young Princes, in their turn, accompanied their father in a
+journey to visit their uncle, King Leopold. This was a most important
+event in the Prince&#8217;s life; for, though the visit was of but short<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_56" id="Page_56">[Pg 56]</a></span>
+duration, the spectacle which he then saw, of a nation which had freed
+itself, and worked out its own destiny, had the strongest effect upon his
+mind and conscience, which thence grew in attachment to liberal
+principles. His deeply-rooted love of art, too, received a strong stimulus
+from the splendid architectural and artistic treasures of the old Belgian
+city. On his return from Brussels, being now about thirteen years old, he
+became remarkably studious, and vigorously set himself to the pursuit of
+an unusually comprehensive circle of subjects.</p>
+
+<p>The only recreation which he pursued with vigour was deer-stalking, and
+this most beneficially promoted the robustness of a frame as yet
+distinguished by delicacy. On Palm Sunday, 1835, he was confirmed, and his
+heart seems, at and from this period, to have come under the influence of
+religious convictions of peculiar depth and sincerity, though of singular
+freedom from all traces of bigotry.</p>
+
+<p>The confirmation of the Princes was immediately followed by a series of
+visits to various of their imperial, regal, princely, and noble relatives
+and friends throughout Germany and the provinces on the Danube. They
+visited in succession Mecklenburg, Berlin, Dresden, Prague, Vienna, Pesth,
+and Ofen. In May, 1836, the Princes came to England, on a visit to their
+aunt Kent. It was on this occasion that Albert and Victoria first met.</p>
+
+<p>On his return to the Continent from this his first and most gratifying
+visit to England, the Duke of Coburg placed Albert and his elder brother
+for a time under the care of their uncle at Brussels. A private house was
+taken for them, in which they pursued their studies under Dr. Drury, an
+English clergyman, who had been appointed<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_57" id="Page_57">[Pg 57]</a></span> their tutor. This gentleman
+recorded this testimony of his pupil, when, shortly afterwards, he was
+removed from his tutelage, and before any idea was entertained about his
+distinguished future position:&mdash;&#8220;His attainments are various, and solid
+too; his abilities are superior; his disposition amiable; his conduct
+unexceptionable; and, above all, his belief in, and his attachment to, the
+Protestant religion is sincere.&#8221;</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">PRINCE ALBERT AT COLLEGE.</div>
+
+<p>In the summer following (1837) the two brothers were entered as students
+of law, or, more correctly, of jurisprudence (<i>juris studiosi</i>), at the
+University of Bonn, the Oxford of Germany in respect to the high rank of
+some of its students, and standing in the very first place in point of
+intrinsic efficiency. The tutor Florsch&uuml;tz still accompanied the young
+men; and they benefited by the prelections of such men as Fichte, Perthes,
+and Augustus Schlegel. Prince Albert studied classics, mathematics, mental
+philosophy, political economy, history, and statistical science. In the
+last subject he had been well grounded at Brussels by the distinguished M.
+Quetelet, who formed the highest opinion of his pupil&#8217;s powers and
+assiduity. He had, besides, private tutors for music and drawing, in both
+of which arts he was already well advanced. In the second stage of his
+curriculum his studies were specially devoted to jurisprudence and civil
+history. While at Bonn he displayed at once a talent for poetry and a
+benevolent heart, by the publication for the benefit of the poor of a
+collection of songs, which his brother set to meritorious musical
+accompaniments. He visited only among his princely fellow-students, and at
+the houses of the professors. His brother and he, though they occasionally
+gave courtly entertainments to<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_58" id="Page_58">[Pg 58]</a></span> their friends, lived in private a
+temperate and frugal life. He assiduously sought out the society of
+<i>savans</i> and men of letters, especially loving to associate with
+Professors Welcker and Schlegel. The latter, though he detested the
+ordinary run of &#8220;princelings,&#8221; was quite charmed by Albert, of whom he
+thought and spoke most highly. The Prince kept only three academical
+terms, and finally left the University, in September, 1838, leaving golden
+opinions everywhere behind him. Not the least hearty of his eulogists in
+after years was Peter Stamm, an hotel-keeper, who acted as gamekeeper to
+him on his shooting excursions, and who for years after pointed to English
+visitors the portrait of Prince Albert in his sitting-room, his eyes the
+while brimming over with glad tears. The University, after his marriage,
+conferred upon him the honorary degree of Doctor of Laws, and in the
+diploma pointed reference was made to his &#8220;summ&aelig; fortun&aelig; magnitudinem ac
+gravitatem, summ&acirc; comitate, amabilique morum suavitate et humanitate.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>The winter of 1838-9 was passed by the Prince in a tour through
+Switzerland and Italy. After pursuing his journey as far as Naples, and
+omitting no locality of interest on the way, he came home by way of
+Vienna, and returned to the Castle of Ehrenberg in the summer of 1839. It
+has been stated that he found, on the wall of his room, a miniature of
+Queen Victoria, by Chalon, which she had sent to him as a gift in his
+absence; but we have not discovered any very reliable authority for the
+anecdote. In August, having completed his twentieth year, he was formally
+declared of age. He inherited from his mother landed estates amounting to
+&pound;2,400 yearly value. These lands, we have reason to<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_59" id="Page_59">[Pg 59]</a></span> believe, he
+transferred to his brother upon the formal announcement of his engagement
+to Queen Victoria, subject only to pensions and allowances to certain
+persons who had belonged to his modest household.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">PRINCE ALBERT&#8217;S BETROTHAL.</div>
+
+<p>On the 8th of December, 1839, his betrothal was formally and publicly
+announced at Coburg. In the morning the Ducal family, with the Court
+officials, attended Divine service in the chapel of the Castle; in the
+afternoon, in the presence of the same dignitaries, with the deputies of
+the Duchies of Coburg and Gotha, the Chief Minister formally read the
+announcement of the betrothal; the while the booming of cannon from the
+fortress announced the tidings to the people of the town and the
+neighbouring country. About three hundred persons in all were present at
+the ceremony within the Castle, including bearers of congratulatory
+addresses, not only from the two duchies, but from Austria, Prussia,
+Hesse, Saxony, and other German states. From the report of an English
+gentleman of high social position, who was present on this important
+occasion, we extract, in conclusion, these fuller details:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>When the Minister (Baron de Carlowitz) had read the proclamation, the
+Duke embraced his son, and the Duchess next imprinted a kiss upon his
+forehead, while in every eye might be read the heartfelt wish that all
+the parents&#8217; fondest, proudest hopes might be fully realised. More
+than one hundred and sixty persons partook of the hospitalities of the
+Duke&#8217;s table, in the &#8220;Riesen Saal,&#8221; or &#8220;Giant&#8217;s Hall,&#8221; and a more
+sumptuous or splendid entertainment could not be imagined. The loud
+and cordial cheers which the health of England&#8217;s Queen called forth,
+and which burst out with an enthusiasm which all the forms of
+etiquette and courtly ceremony could not restrain, were almost too
+affecting; and when the band struck up &#8220;God save the Queen,&#8221; the tears
+of joy flowed freely. I must not omit to mention a circumstance
+characteristic of the Prince. By his order, the people were admitted
+into<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_60" id="Page_60">[Pg 60]</a></span> the &#8220;Riesen Saal,&#8221; to see the assembled company. Peasants from
+the hills, old and young, walked about without the smallest restraint,
+to their evident enjoyment; and their hearty exclamations&mdash;the
+blessings they invoked on their beloved Prince and his august
+parents&mdash;were a more eloquent and stirring panegyric than volumes
+could express. To describe the universal attachment of all classes to
+the Prince were impossible. I have never heard other than the most
+enthusiastic praise&mdash;not one dissenting voice from one end of
+Thuringia to the other. If I have remarked the personal beauty of the
+Prince, the general reply has been, &#8220;Ah! yes, he is certainly
+handsome, but so good; he is truly a most amiable prince, as good as
+he is handsome.&#8221; Persons attached to his suite, and the older members
+of the Court, cannot speak of him without tears, and are quite
+distressed at the thought of his leaving his native land.... On the
+28th of December the Prince, accompanied by his father, quitted his
+paternal residence for a short sojourn at Gotha; and as he bade a last
+adieu to the stately castle of Ehrenberg, the abode of his fathers,
+and the happy scene of his infancy, the tenderest emotions of his
+nature for a moment almost overwhelmed him. A few days prior to his
+departure, a ball was given him by the nobles, at which he was
+received by twelve young ladies, attired in white, and wearing
+fresh-gathered roses; the Philosophic Society gave him a serenade, and
+all classes joined in affectionate expression of sympathy in their
+young Prince&#8217;s feelings on this momentous occasion.</p></div>
+
+<p>Lord Viscount Torrington and Colonel the Honourable Charles Grey, who were
+charged with the two-fold mission of investing the Prince with the
+insignia of the Order of the Garter, and escorting him and his suite to
+England, arrived at Gotha early in January, 1840, and the investiture took
+place on the 24th, with imposing ceremony. The jewels, which were of
+diamonds and of rare workmanship, were a present from the Queen. After a
+series of hospitable festivities in honour of the English envoys, Prince
+Albert set out for England on the 28th of the month.</p>
+
+
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p><p>&nbsp;</p>
+<hr style="width: 50%;" />
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_61" id="Page_61">[Pg 61]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_VIII" id="CHAPTER_VIII"></a>CHAPTER VIII.</h2>
+<p class="title">THE PRINCESS VICTORIA BECOMES QUEEN REGNANT.</p>
+
+<div class="note"><p class="hang">First Meeting of the Princess Victoria and Prince Albert&mdash;Coming of
+Age&mdash;Festivities on the Occasion&mdash;Death of William IV., and Accession
+of Victoria&mdash;The Queen holds her First Privy Council&mdash;Her
+Address&mdash;Proclamation as Queen at St. James&#8217;s Palace&mdash;Beautiful Traits
+of Character displayed by the Queen&mdash;Stirring and Gorgeous
+Scene&mdash;Delight of the People at the Queen&#8217;s Accession.</p></div>
+
+
+<p>The marriage of Prince Albert with the Princess Victoria was desired, if
+not planned, by certain of their common relatives, especially the Duchess
+Dowager of Coburg and her son Prince Leopold, almost from the period when
+the cousins were in their cradles. After his betrothal, the Prince himself
+told the Queen that his mother, who died in 1831, wished earnestly that he
+should marry her. He first saw his future wife in the month of May, 1836,
+when he and his brother came to England on a visit to their aunt. He
+greatly enjoyed this visit to England, and the youthful guests were
+treated by the authorities and the inhabitants of the metropolis with the
+utmost courtesy and attention. They were sumptuously entertained at
+Windsor by the King and Queen Adelaide, and were conducted to all the
+great sights of the town by their aunt and cousin.</p>
+
+<p>On the 24th of May, 1837, the Princess Victoria having attained her
+eighteenth year, was declared legally of age, according to the provisions
+of a recent Act of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_62" id="Page_62">[Pg 62]</a></span> Parliament. Amongst the first to congratulate her on
+the happy event was Prince Albert. This happy day was kept as a general
+holiday, and the night made brilliant by an illumination. It was
+celebrated with demonstrations of excessive joy at Kensington. At six
+o&#8217;clock in the morning the union-jack was hoisted on the steeple of the
+old church, as also on the green sward opposite the Palace. That edifice
+was surmounted by a splendid flag of pure white silk, on which was
+inscribed, in letters of ethereal blue, the single word &#8220;Victoria.&#8221; From
+the houses of the principal inhabitants in the High Street waved a
+profusion of other flags. The gates of the Gardens were thrown open at six
+o&#8217;clock for the admission of the public; and it having got wind the
+previous evening that a serenade would be performed at seven o&#8217;clock, at
+which hour Victoria first drew breath eighteen years before, the portion
+of the Gardens next the Palace was thronged by an assemblage of
+well-dressed persons, including several ladies. Congratulatory addresses
+and innumerable presents&mdash;amongst the latter, a splendid piano from the
+King&mdash;poured in from all quarters. At night a magnificent ball in honour
+of the occasion was given at St. James&#8217;s Palace.</p>
+
+<p>During these festivities, although it was known that the King&#8217;s health was
+seriously enfeebled, no one imagined that within a month from the
+attainment of her majority the young Princess would become Queen of
+England. The anniversary of Waterloo was always a great day with King
+William. The Duke of Wellington, in consideration of the declining state
+of the King&#8217;s health, proposed not to have the usual banquet at Apsley<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_63" id="Page_63">[Pg 63]</a></span>
+House; but, the day before, William, sent a message desiring that the
+banquet should take place, and wishing the host and guests a pleasant day.
+By two o&#8217;clock on the morning of the 20th he was no more.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">ACCESSION TO THE THRONE.</div>
+
+<p>Shortly after the demise of the Sovereign, three carriages, conveying the
+Primate, the Earl of Albemarle and Sir Henry Halford, the Royal physician,
+started from Windsor, and arrived at Kensington Palace shortly before five
+o&#8217;clock. The doors were thrown open before them, and in the early morning
+sunshine stood the Queen of England and her mother, prepared for the news,
+and ready to receive them. At nine o&#8217;clock, Lord Melbourne, the Premier,
+arrived at the Palace, and had an interview of half an hour with his new
+mistress. Before noon came the Lord Mayor and other members of the
+Corporation. Next to appear was the Duke of Cumberland. Miss Martineau
+thus describes the quick succession of incidents which now crowded one
+upon the other with rapid haste:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>On the meeting of the princes, peers, and other councillors, they
+signed the oath of allegiance; and the first name on the list was that
+of Ernest, King of Hanover. The Queen caused them all to be sworn in
+Members of the Council, and then addressed them; after which they
+issued orders for the Proclamation of Her Majesty. If the millions who
+longed to know how the young Sovereign looked and felt could have
+heard her first address, it would have gone far to satisfy them. The
+address was, of course, prepared for her; but the manner and voice
+were her own, and they told much. Her manner was composed, modest, and
+dignified; her voice firm and sweet; her reading, as usual, beautiful.
+She took the necessary oaths, and received the eager homage of the
+thronging nobility without agitation or any awkwardness. The
+declaration contained an affectionate reference to the deceased King;
+an assertion of her attachment to the constitution of the country, and
+of her intention to rule in accordance with it; a grateful allusion to
+her mother&#8217;s educational care of her; an avowal<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_64" id="Page_64">[Pg 64]</a></span> that, under
+circumstances of such eminent responsibility as hers, she relied for
+support and guidance in Divine Providence, and a pledge that her life
+should be devoted to the happiness of her people. The Ministers
+returned into her hands, and received again, the seals of their
+respective offices; the stamps in official use were ordered to be
+altered, as also the prayers of the Church which related to the Royal
+Family; the Proclamation was prepared and signed by the Privy
+Councillors, and the Queen appointed the next day, Wednesday, for the
+ceremony. The first use of the Great Seal, under the new reign, was to
+authenticate the official Proclamation, which was gazetted the same
+evening. During the whole morning, carriages were driving up rapidly,
+bringing visitors eager to offer their homage. What a day of whirl and
+fatigue for one in a position so lonely, at such tender years. How
+welcome must have been the night, and the quiet of her pillow,
+whatever might be the thoughts that rested upon it. The next morning
+she appeared &#8220;extremely pale and fatigued,&#8221; and no wonder, for she had
+passed through a day which could never be paralleled.</p></div>
+
+<p>The following is the text of her Majesty&#8217;s speech delivered on this
+occasion to the Privy Council:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>The severe and afflicting loss which the nation has sustained by the
+death of His Majesty, my beloved uncle, has devolved upon me the duty
+of administering the Government of this empire. This awful
+responsibility is imposed upon me so suddenly, and at so early a
+period, that I should feel myself utterly oppressed by the burden,
+were I not sustained by the hope that Divine Providence, which has
+called me to this work, will give me strength for the performance of
+it, and that I shall find, in the purity of my intentions, and in my
+zeal for the public welfare, that support and those resources which
+usually belong to a more mature age and longer experience. I place my
+firm reliance upon the wisdom of Parliament, and upon the loyalty and
+affection of my people. I esteem it also a peculiar advantage that I
+succeed to a sovereign whose constant regard for the rights and
+liberties of his subjects, and whose desire to promote the
+amelioration of the laws and institutions of the country, have
+rendered his name the object of general attachment and veneration.
+Educated in England, under the tender and affectionate care of a most
+affectionate mother, I have learned from my infancy to respect and
+love the constitution of my native country. It will be my unceasing
+study to maintain the <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_65" id="Page_65">[Pg 65]</a></span>reformed religion as by law established,
+securing, at the same time, to all the full enjoyment of religious
+liberty; and I shall steadily protect the rights, and promote to the
+utmost of my power the happiness and welfare of all classes of my
+subjects.</p></div>
+
+<div class="sidenote">PROCLAMATION AS QUEEN.</div>
+
+<p>The next day, the 21st of June, the Queen was publicly proclaimed, under
+the title of Alexandrina Victoria I.; but since that day she has disused
+the Russian name bestowed upon her by her Muscovite godfather, preferring
+to retain simply &#8220;Victoria.&#8221; The Queen arrived at the Palace at ten
+o&#8217;clock, where she was received by most of the members of the Royal
+Family, the Officers of the Household, and Ministers of State. Long before
+ten all the avenues to the Palace were crowded, every balcony, window, and
+housetop being crammed with the better class of spectators. The space in
+the quadrangle in front of the window where Her Majesty was to appear, was
+crowded with ladies and gentlemen, and even the parapets above were filled
+with people.</p>
+
+<p>At ten o&#8217;clock the guns in the Park fired a salute, and immediately after
+the Queen made her appearance at the window of the tapestried ante-room
+adjoining the audience chamber, and was received with deafening
+cheers&mdash;cheers all the more hearty that her appearance was a surprise, for
+few had known that she was to be there present. She was dressed in deep
+mourning, with a white tippet, white cuffs, and a border of white lace
+under a small black bonnet, which was placed far back on her head,
+exhibiting her light brown hair simply parted in front. She viewed the
+proceedings with intense interest, standing during the whole rehearsal of
+the Proclamation; and although she looked pale and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_66" id="Page_66">[Pg 66]</a></span> fatigued, she returned
+the repeated rounds of cheers with great grace and dignity. All were
+touched to very tenderness of soul by the pale face, wet with tears, calm
+and simply grave, the gravity being enhanced by the plain black dress and
+bands of brown hair, giving an aspect of Quaker-like neatness. On either
+side stood Lords Melbourne and Lansdowne, in their state dresses and blue
+ribbons, and close to her was her mother, who was dressed similarly to the
+Queen.</p>
+
+<p>In the court-yard were Garter King-at-Arms, with Heralds and Pursuivants
+in their robes of office, and eight Officers-of-Arms on horseback, bearing
+massive silver maces; Sergeants-at-Arms, with their maces and collars; the
+Sergeant-Trumpeter, with his mace and collar; the trumpets, drum-major and
+drums, and Knights Marshal and men. On Her Majesty showing herself at the
+Presence Chamber window, Garter Principal King-at-Arms, having taken his
+station in the court-yard under the window, accompanied by the Duke of
+Norfolk as Earl Marshal of England, read the Proclamation, containing the
+formal and official announcement of the demise of King William IV., and of
+the consequent accession of Queen Alexandrina Victoria to the rule of
+these realms. The Proclamation was brief, and to the point:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>Whereas it hath pleased Almighty God to call to His mercy our late
+Sovereign Lord, King William IV., of blessed memory, by whose decease
+the Imperial Crown of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland
+is solely and rightfully come to the High and Mighty Princess
+Alexandrina Victoria, we therefore, the Lords Spiritual and Temporal
+of this Realm, being here assisted with these of his late Majesty&#8217;s
+Privy Council, with numbers of other principal gentlemen of quality,
+the Lord Mayor, Aldermen, and citizens of London, do now <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_67" id="Page_67">[Pg 67]</a></span>hereby with
+one voice and consent of tongue, proclaim that the High and Mighty
+Princess Alexandrina Victoria is now, by the death of our late
+Sovereign William IV., of happy memory, become our only lawful and
+rightful Liege Lady, Alexandrina Victoria I., Queen of Great Britain
+and Ireland, Defender of the Faith, ... to whom we acknowledge all
+faith and constant obedience, with all humble and hearty affection,
+beseeching God, by whom Kings and Queens do reign, to bless the Royal
+Princess Alexandrina Victoria with long and happy years to reign. God
+Save the Queen.</p></div>
+
+<div class="sidenote">THE QUEEN AND THE DUKE OF SUSSEX.</div>
+
+<p>At the termination of this Proclamation, the band struck up the National
+Anthem, and a signal was given for the Park and Tower guns to fire, in
+order to announce the fact of the Proclamation being made. Amid the
+booming of the guns, the air was rent with cheers by those within the
+area, which were taken up by the tens of thousands outside. The enthusiasm
+of the comparative few who could see Victoria rose to rapture when, the
+moment she was proclaimed Queen, she turned round, threw her arms round
+her mother&#8217;s neck, and wept without restraint. And when her loved uncle,
+the Duke of Sussex, presented himself, the day before, to take the oath of
+allegiance, and was about to kneel in her presence to kiss her hand, she
+gracefully prevented him, kissed his cheek affectionately, and said, &#8220;Do
+not kneel, my uncle, for I am still Victoria, your niece.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>The feelings of gratification with which the people welcomed the accession
+of Victoria cannot be depicted in terms too strong. To most, the course of
+years seemed very short during which they had been eagerly watching the
+growth and training of the Princess. It seemed&mdash;at least, to all but the
+young&mdash;but a matter of yesterday that the newspapers had informed them of
+the birth of the Royal babe; of the Duke of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_68" id="Page_68">[Pg 68]</a></span> Kent&#8217;s illness: how he had
+come home from a walk with wet boots, and, &#8220;beguiled by the smiles of his
+infant Princess,&#8221; had played with her, instead of changing his clothes,
+and thus caught the cold of which he died. And here she was now, a woman,
+and the sovereign ruler of a hundred million of souls. All they had heard
+of her was favourable. Sinister rumours and alarms there had been, but
+they had been dissipated and dispersed like the morning&#8217;s mist before the
+rising god of day. Her morals were pure, her conduct spotless, and in all
+arts and accomplishments she had been carefully trained. From her earliest
+days she had been abroad in all weathers; having been often seen, when it
+was stormy, on a windy common, with a warm cloak and thick boots. She kept
+early hours, and was so exactly and proverbially punctual, that it was
+mentioned as a marvel that she once had to apologise for being half a
+minute late in an appointment. She had never been known to exceed her
+pocket-money in her personal expenditure, or to be sixpence in debt&mdash;an
+extraordinary novelty in a descendant of George III.</p>
+
+<p>In the first year of her reign the people were delighted to find that she
+had paid her father&#8217;s debts, including considerable sums advanced by his
+warm friends, Lords Fitzwilliam and Dundas. Next she paid her mother&#8217;s
+debts&mdash;debts unavoidably contracted, as she knew and acknowledged, on her
+account. She provided with royal munificence for the whole family of the
+late sovereign, and honoured them with courtesies and kindnesses, which
+almost obliterated the pain arising from their dubious position. Yet she
+lived within her income, and paid as she purchased.</p>
+
+
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p><p>&nbsp;</p>
+<hr style="width: 50%;" />
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_69" id="Page_69">[Pg 69]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_IX" id="CHAPTER_IX"></a>CHAPTER IX.</h2>
+<p class="title">THE MAIDEN QUEEN.</p>
+
+<div class="note"><p class="hang">Removal to Buckingham Palace&mdash;First Lev&eacute;e&mdash;Dissolves
+Parliament&mdash;Beauty of her Elocution&mdash;Splendid Reception by the City of
+London&mdash;Settlement of the Queen&#8217;s Income&mdash;Her Daily Life&mdash;Her
+admirable Knowledge of, and Devotion to, the Business of the
+State&mdash;Reverence for the Lord&#8217;s Day.</p></div>
+
+
+<p>Greatly to the regret of the inhabitants of Kensington, the Queen, with
+her mother, took her final departure from the abode where she was born,
+and in which she had spent so many happy days, and proceeded to Buckingham
+Palace, on July 13th. The Queen, on this occasion, looked pale, and her
+countenance had a very natural, and easily accounted for, aspect of deep
+regret. Immediately afterwards she held a Court Lev&eacute;e. It was, of course,
+thronged by her loyal subjects who had the privilege of entr&eacute;e; but there
+was no appearance of fatigue in her face, voice, or manner, and the day
+passed off with spirit and brilliancy. She seemed to have acquired (so say
+the court chroniclers of the period), if possible, increased grace and
+dignity. She wore a rich lama dress, her head glittered with diamonds, and
+her breast was covered with the insignia of the Garter and other orders. A
+pair of embroidered velvet slippers covered feet which, resting on the
+cushion, were observed and admired by all as &#8220;exquisitely small.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_70" id="Page_70">[Pg 70]</a></span>On the 17th of July she went in state to the House of Lords to dissolve
+the Parliament, in accordance with constitutional usage and enactment on
+the demise of the Crown. After thanking both Houses for their expressions
+of condolence on the death of her uncle, and for the zeal and assiduity
+with which they had discharged their duties, especially for their efforts
+to mitigate the severity of the penal code, she concluded by saying:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>I ascend the throne with a deep sense of the responsibility which is
+imposed upon me; but I am supported by the consciousness of my own
+right intentions, and by my dependence upon the protection of Almighty
+God. It will be my care to strengthen our institutions, civil and
+ecclesiastical, by discreet improvement wherever improvement is
+required, and to do all in my power to compose and allay animosity and
+discord. Acting upon these principles, I shall, upon all occasions,
+look with confidence to the wisdom of Parliament and the affections of
+my people, which form the true support of the dignity of the Crown,
+and ensure the stability of the Constitution.</p></div>
+
+<p>The admirable manner in which the speech was read&mdash;her singularly musical
+voice being heard, without the slightest appearance of effort, in every
+corner of the House of Lords&mdash;was the subject of the admiration of all who
+heard it. It was, indeed, known that she was a fine singer, and frequently
+entertained her mother&#8217;s guests by singing to them, her mother
+accompanying her on the piano; nevertheless, the lucidity of her tones,
+and the entire absence of any discomposure to disturb them, surprised
+every one, and no one more so than her mother.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">STATE VISIT TO THE CITY.</div>
+
+<p>The Queen went in great state to the City on Lord Mayor&#8217;s Day, November 9.
+This royal entry was one of the greatest sights which had ever been beheld
+in the City. The Queen, looking remarkably well, magnificently <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_71" id="Page_71">[Pg 71]</a></span>attired in
+pink satin shot with silver, was greeted with deafening cheers from a
+crowd far denser than any she had ever seen, along her whole route from
+Marlborough House (her temporary residence until Buckingham Palace was
+completed for her occupation) to the Guildhall. The houses along the
+thoroughfares by which the cavalcade passed were hung with bright-coloured
+cloths, with green boughs, and with what flowers the earth could afford at
+the late season of the year. Flags and heraldic banners darkened the dim
+November light across the Strand, Fleet Street, and Cheapside; and every
+pedestal that could be improvised supported a bust of Queen Victoria. At
+Temple Bar the Lord Mayor and Aldermen, mounted on artillery horses from
+Woolwich, each of the steeds being held by the head by the soldier who was
+accustomed to bestride him, awaited their distinguished guest. The Lord
+Mayor, dismounting and taking the City Sword in his hand, delivered the
+keys, which were graciously returned, while more vociferous cheers than
+ever rent the air. On which, the Lord Mayor, re-mounting and holding the
+City Sword aloft, rode before Her Majesty through the City, the cort&eacute;ge of
+mounted Aldermen following her carriage. The open space before St. Paul&#8217;s
+was occupied by hustings, crowded by the Liverymen of the City Companies
+and the Christ&#8217;s Hospital boys. One of these, in conformity with an old
+usage, having presented an address to the Queen, and the whole of the boys
+having sung &#8220;God save the Queen,&#8221; the procession went on its way. At the
+Guildhall, which, with all its adjacent chambers, was sumptuously fitted
+up, a loyal address was read by the Recorder, and suitably acknowledged.
+After this came a sumptuous banquet,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_72" id="Page_72">[Pg 72]</a></span> from which Her Majesty retired, to
+see on her way back the whole line of the route brilliantly illuminated.</p>
+
+<p>The first message which the Queen sent to Parliament when it re-assembled,
+was a truly characteristic one: it asked for a suitable provision for her
+royal mother. This provision was loyally made, and in the same short
+winter session her own civil list was settled. William IV. had enjoyed a
+civil list amounting to &pound;510,000, while, from the accession of George III.
+to the death of his eldest son, it had been fixed at &pound;1,030,000. Her
+Majesty&#8217;s civil list was fixed at &pound;385,000 per annum, and her privy purse,
+being the only sum over which she had complete personal control, and from
+which her private charities had to be disbursed, was fixed at &pound;60,000. Out
+of the &pound;385,000 the calculation, based by order of Parliament upon the
+accounts of the late reign, was that &pound;131,260 would go for salaries of the
+Household, from the Master of the Horse and Mistress of the Robes, down to
+the humblest scullion and stable-helper; and &pound;172,500 in tradesmen&#8217;s
+bills.</p>
+
+<p>During the early days of her maiden reign, the Queen rose at eight,
+occupied a remarkably short time in dressing, and then discharged such
+routine business as signing despatches until the breakfast hour, which was
+invariably a quarter before ten. At that hour, she without fail sent one
+of her attendants to <i>invite</i> the Duchess of Kent to breakfast. From the
+day of her ascending the throne, to remove the slightest ground for
+suspicion as to any undue influence, the strictest etiquette was preserved
+between mother and daughter; the former never approaching the latter
+unless specially summoned, and carefully abstaining from<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_73" id="Page_73">[Pg 73]</a></span> conversing about
+the business of the State. Twelve o&#8217;clock was the time appointed for
+conferences with her Ministers. After the usual complimentary salutation,
+she at once proceeded to the business of the day. If a document were
+handed to her, she read it without comment, and no remark passed her own
+lips or those of the Ministers present, until its perusal was concluded.
+After retiring from the Council-room, the interval was passed until dinner
+in riding or walking. At dinner, the first Lord-in-waiting took the head
+of the table; opposite to him, the chief Equerry-in-waiting. Her Majesty&#8217;s
+chair was half way down on the right, the various guests being seated
+according to their ranks. Next to Her Majesty, on the right hand, was the
+nobleman of highest degree; next to him, the Duchess of Kent, and so on.
+On Her Majesty&#8217;s left, the same rule was observed, the Baroness Lehzen,
+who acted as Secretary to the Queen, being always near her. The Queen left
+the table early for the drawing-room, where her musical tastes were
+regaled almost invariably, and her own proficiency very frequently
+displayed.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">REVERENCE FOR SUNDAY.</div>
+
+<p>The following incident, which was made public during the first year of the
+Queen&#8217;s reign, made a very pleasing impression upon the well-conditioned
+portion of the public. A certain noble Minister arrived at Windsor at a
+late hour on Saturday night. On being introduced, he said, &#8220;I have brought
+down for your Majesty&#8217;s inspection some documents of great importance;
+but, as I shall be obliged to trouble you to examine them in detail, I
+will not encroach on the time of your Majesty to-night, but will request
+your attention to-morrow morning.&#8221; &#8220;To-morrow morning?&#8221; repeated the
+Queen;<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_74" id="Page_74">[Pg 74]</a></span> &#8220;to-morrow is Sunday, my lord.&#8221; &#8220;True, your Majesty, but business
+of the State will not admit of delay.&#8221; &#8220;I am aware of that,&#8221; replied the
+Queen, &#8220;and, as your lordship could not have arrived earlier at the Palace
+to-night, I will, if those papers are of such pressing importance, attend
+to their contents after church to-morrow morning.&#8221; So to church went the
+Queen and the Court, and to church went the noble lord; when, much to his
+surprise, the discourse was on the duties and obligations of the Christian
+Sabbath. &#8220;How did your lordship like the sermon?&#8221; asked the Queen. &#8220;Very
+much indeed, your Majesty,&#8221; replied the nobleman. &#8220;Well, then,&#8221; retorted
+Her Majesty, &#8220;I will not conceal from you that, last night, I sent the
+clergyman the text from which he preached. I hope we shall all be improved
+by the sermon.&#8221; The Sunday passed without a single word being said
+relative to the State papers, and at night, when Her Majesty was about to
+withdraw&mdash;&#8220;To-morrow morning, my lord, at any hour you please,&#8221; said the
+Queen, turning to the nobleman&mdash;&#8220;as early as seven, my lord, if you like,
+we will look into the papers.&#8221; The nobleman said that he could not think
+of intruding on Her Majesty at so early an hour; he thought nine o&#8217;clock
+would be quite soon enough. &#8220;No, no, my lord,&#8221; said the Queen; &#8220;as the
+papers are of importance, I wish them to be attended to very early.
+However, if you wish it to be nine, be it so.&#8221; And accordingly, the next
+morning at nine, Her Majesty was seated ready to receive the nobleman and
+his papers.</p>
+
+
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p><p>&nbsp;</p>
+<hr style="width: 50%;" />
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_75" id="Page_75">[Pg 75]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_X" id="CHAPTER_X"></a>CHAPTER X.</h2>
+<p class="title">THE QUEEN CROWNED.</p>
+
+<div class="note"><p class="hang">Novel Features in the Coronation&mdash;Its Cost&mdash;Large Amount of Money
+Circulated&mdash;Splendour of the Procession&mdash;Enormous Crowds&mdash;The Scene
+within the Abbey&mdash;Arrival of the Queen&mdash;The Regalia and Sacred
+Vessels&mdash;Costume of the Queen&mdash;Astonishment of the Turkish Ambassador
+at the Scene&mdash;The Coronation Ceremony&mdash;The Queen&#8217;s Oath&mdash;The
+Anointing&mdash;The Crown placed on her Head&mdash;The Homage&mdash;An Aged Peer&mdash;The
+Queen&#8217;s Crown&mdash;The Illuminations and general Festivities&mdash;Fair in Hyde
+Park&mdash;The Duke of Wellington and Marshal Soult at the Guildhall.</p></div>
+
+
+<p>The great event of the year 1838 was the Coronation, which took place on
+the 28th of June. It was conducted after the abridged model of that of the
+Queen&#8217;s immediate predecessor. The Coronation of George IV. had cost
+&pound;243,000; that of William IV., &pound;50,000. The charges on the occasion of the
+crowning of Queen Victoria amounted to about &pound;70,000. This slight excess
+over the cost of the last Sovereign&#8217;s solemn investiture with regal power
+was explained by the Chancellor of the Exchequer as having been in no
+sense occasioned by any part of the ceremonial peculiarly connected with
+the Sovereign, but it had been incurred with a view of enabling the great
+mass of the people to participate in this national festivity. The great
+novelty on the occasion was the omission of the walking procession of all
+the estates of the realm, and the banquet in Westminster Hall, with the
+feudal services attendant thereon. Many of the upper classes<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_76" id="Page_76">[Pg 76]</a></span> grumbled not
+a little at these omissions; but the general public were more than
+proportionately gratified. For in lieu of the disused ceremonies, a public
+procession through the streets was substituted. This enabled all to
+witness the splendid pageant, and induced a very large private expenditure
+and circulation of money. It was estimated that no less than &pound;200,000 were
+paid for the use of windows and other positions of vantage in the line of
+the procession. The price of single seats ranged from five shillings to
+ten guineas; and the Duke of Buckingham, in his &#8220;Courts and Cabinets of
+William IV. and Victoria,&#8221; alleges that single windows in Pall Mall and
+St. James&#8217;s Street produced no less than &pound;200. Persons of distinction
+behaved with a becoming liberality and splendour. Marshal Soult, the old
+opponent of Wellington, who specially represented on the occasion the
+Court of the Tuileries, and who was received by the crowds with great
+enthusiasm, appeared in a splendid state carriage that had been used by
+the Prince of Cond&eacute;. The Russian Ambassador purchased for &pound;1,600 a similar
+chariot, which had already done the same duty for the Duke of Devonshire,
+at St. Petersburg, on a like occasion. Another diplomat gave &pound;250 for the
+loan for the day of a vehicle befitting his rank; while many more had to
+content themselves with carriages whose normal function it was to minister
+to the state of the civic magnates, and which were hastily repainted and
+decorated for the auspicious occasion.</p>
+
+<p>The day was one of the brightest on which the Queen, with her proverbial
+good fortune in this respect, has ever appeared amongst her subjects. At
+early morn, the first rays of the blazing Midsummer sun slanted down
+through<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_77" id="Page_77">[Pg 77]</a></span> the windows of Westminster Abbey upon the jewels of whole rows of
+peeresses, and the illuminations which turned night into day remained in
+full magnificence until the dawn of the succeeding morning. At dawn, a
+salvo of artillery from the Tower caused all the population to be astir,
+and the population was on this day increased by the importation of four
+hundred thousand visitors. The behaviour of the enormous multitude which
+first lined the streets and then spread itself over the town, was beyond
+all praise. Courtesy and mutual forbearance were conspicuous, and no
+accident or offence occurred to mar the pleasing impressions of the
+ceremonial.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">ORDER OF THE PROCESSION.</div>
+
+<p>The route of the procession was as follows:&mdash;From Buckingham Palace, up
+Constitution Hill, along Piccadilly, St. James&#8217;s Street, Pall Mall,
+Cockspur Street, Charing Cross, Whitehall, and Parliament Street, to the
+great west door of Westminster Abbey. The most novel feature of the
+procession was the carriages of the Foreign Ambassadors, to which we have
+already alluded, with their j&auml;gers in gorgeous or grotesque uniforms.
+These came in the order in which they had arrived on their special
+missions to this country; the carriages of the regular resident
+Ambassadors came in their ordinary order of precedence. Next followed the
+members of the Royal Family, the Duchess of Kent preceding the carriages
+of the surviving sons of George III. To the Queen&#8217;s Barge Master, with
+forty-eight watermen, succeeded twelve of the Royal carriages, containing
+the Ladies and Gentlemen of the Household. Next came mounted, three and
+three, the high functionaries of the Army. And after Royal huntsmen,
+yeomen, prickers, marshalmen, foresters, and a host of other minor
+functionaries&mdash;the whole of the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_78" id="Page_78">[Pg 78]</a></span> mounted Household Troops being here and
+there interspersed at intervals in the cavalcade&mdash;came the grand state
+coach, containing Her Majesty the Queen, with the Duchess of Sutherland,
+Mistress of the Robes. On either side of the carriage rode Lord
+Combermere, Gold Stick in Waiting, and the Earl of Ilchester, Captain of
+the Yeomen of the Guard. The Earl of Albemarle, as Master of the Horse,
+and the Duke of Buccleuch, as Captain-General of the Royal Scottish
+Archers, rode behind. A squadron of Life Guards brought up the rear.</p>
+
+<p>Meanwhile, within the Abbey, a painful sleepiness had oppressed those who
+had sat so many hours in cramped positions; many of them in galleries
+perched up high under the roofs of the aisles. Suddenly, a burst of music,
+rushing among the arches and ringing from the roof, aroused and entranced
+all, who peered eagerly down upon the procession of small figures; the
+central one looking the slightest and most fragile of all. At half-past
+eleven, the Queen reached the door of the Abbey, where she was received by
+the great officers of State, the noblemen bearing the Regalia, and the
+bishops carrying Patina, Chalice, and Bible. Having retired to her
+Robing-room, the procession formed and proceeded towards the altar, which
+was laden with magnificent gold plate, and beside which stood St. Edward&#8217;s
+Chair. Besides the elements which are common to all great English regal
+processions, and which it is, therefore, not requisite to recapitulate,
+the Regalia, which only appear on such occasions, were thus
+distributed:&mdash;St. Edward&#8217;s Staff, the Golden Spurs, the Sceptre with the
+Cross, the Curtana, and two Swords of Investiture, were borne respectively
+by the Duke of Roxburgh, Lord Byron, Duke of <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_79" id="Page_79">[Pg 79]</a></span>Cleveland, Duke of
+Devonshire, Marquis of Westminster, and Duke of Sutherland. The coronets
+of the princes of the blood were borne by noblemen; their trains by
+knights or peers&#8217; sons. Next came the Earl Marshal, Duke of Norfolk, with
+his staff, Lord Melbourne with the Sword of State, and the Duke of
+Wellington, with his staff, as Lord High Constable; the Dukes of Richmond,
+Hamilton, and Somerset bore the Sceptre and Dove, St. Edward&#8217;s Crown, and
+the Orb; the Bishops of Bangor, Winchester, and London carried the Patina,
+Chalice, and Bible. The Queen, who was supported on one side by the Bishop
+of Bath and Wells, on the other by the Bishop of Durham, wore a royal robe
+of crimson velvet, furred with ermine and broidered with gold lace. She
+wore the collars of her orders, and on her head a circlet of gold. Eight
+peers&#8217; daughters bore her train, most, if not all of them, old friends of
+her happy childish tours to the mansions of the aristocracy, and
+distinguished by their personal attractions. About fifty ladies of rank,
+occupying various positions in the household, succeeded, and the
+procession was concluded by Officers of State and Yeomen of the Guard.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">THE CORONATION.</div>
+
+<p>The chief and most picturesque incidents in the Coronation ceremony must
+be briefly narrated. The Queen looked extremely well, and &#8220;had a very
+animated countenance;&#8221; but perhaps the splendid attire of some of the
+foreign ambassadors attracted more attention than even the Sovereign to
+whose court they were accredited. The costume of the Prince Esterhazy was
+by far the most gorgeous; his dress, even to his boot-heels, sparkled with
+diamonds. The Turkish Ambassador seemed specially bewildered at the
+general splendour of the scene: for<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_80" id="Page_80">[Pg 80]</a></span> some moments he stopped in
+astonishment, and had to be courteously admonished to move to his allotted
+place.</p>
+
+<p>As the Queen advanced slowly to the centre of the choir, she was received
+with hearty plaudits, and the musicians sang the anthem, &#8220;I was glad.&#8221; At
+its close, the boys of Westminster School, privileged of old to occupy a
+special gallery, chanted &#8220;Vivat Victoria Regina.&#8221; On this the Queen moved
+to a chair, midway between the Chair of Homage and the altar; and there,
+after a few moments&#8217; private devotion, kneeling on a fald-stool, she sat
+down, and the ceremony proper began. First came the &#8220;recognition.&#8221; The
+Archbishop of Canterbury, accompanied by some half-dozen of the greatest
+civil dignitaries, advanced and said, &#8220;Sirs, I here present unto you Queen
+Victoria, the undoubted Queen of this realm; wherefore, all you who have
+come this day to do your homage, are you willing to do the same?&#8221; On this,
+all Her Majesty&#8217;s subjects present shouted, &#8220;God Save Queen Victoria!&#8221; the
+Archbishop turning in succession to the north, south, and west sides of
+the Abbey, and the Queen doing the same. The bishops who bore them, then
+placed the Patina, Chalice, and Bible on the altar; the Queen, kneeling,
+made her first offering, a pall, or altar-cloth, of gold. The Archbishop
+having offered a prayer, the Regalia were laid on the altar; the Litany
+and Communion services were read, and a brief sermon preached, by various
+prelates. The preacher was the Bishop of London, and his text was from the
+Second Book of Chronicles, chapter xxxiv., verse 31&mdash;&#8220;And the king stood
+in his place, and made a covenant before the Lord, to walk after the Lord,
+and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_81" id="Page_81">[Pg 81]</a></span> to keep his commandments, and his testimonies, and his statutes, with
+all his heart, and with all his soul, to perform the words of the covenant
+which are written in this book.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>After the sermon, the Queen swore&mdash;the Archbishop of Canterbury putting
+the oath&mdash;that she would maintain the law and the established religion.
+Then Her Majesty&mdash;the Sword of State being carried before her&mdash;went to the
+altar, and laying her right hand upon the Gospel, said, kneeling, &#8220;The
+things which I have here-before promised, I will perform and keep. So help
+me, God!&#8221; Having kissed the book, and signed a transcript of the oath
+presented to her by the Archbishop, she knelt upon her fald-stool, while
+the choir sang, &#8220;Veni, Creator, Dominus.&#8221;</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">THE HOMAGE OF THE PEERS.</div>
+
+<p>Now, sitting in King Edward&#8217;s Chair, four Knights of the Garter holding
+the while over her head a canopy of cloth of gold, her head and hands were
+anointed by the Archbishop of Canterbury; after which he said his prayer,
+or blessing, over her. In quick succession followed the delivery of the
+Spurs, Sword of State, &amp;c. The Dean of Westminster, having taken the crown
+from the altar, handed it to the Archbishop, who reverently placed it on
+the Queen&#8217;s head. This was no sooner done, than there arose from every
+part of the edifice a tremendous shout&mdash;&#8220;God save the Queen!&#8221; accompanied
+with lusty cheers and the waving of hats and handkerchiefs. At the same
+moment, the Peers and Peeresses put on their coronets, the Bishops their
+caps, and the Kings of Arms their crowns; the trumpets sounded, the drums
+were beat, and volleys fired from the Tower and Park guns. After the
+Benediction and Te Deum, the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_82" id="Page_82">[Pg 82]</a></span> Queen was &#8220;enthroned,&#8221; or &#8220;lifted,&#8221; as the
+formulary has it, from the chair in which she had first sat into the Chair
+of Homage, where she delivered the sceptre, &amp;c., to noblemen, while she
+received fealty of her more distinguished subjects. The Archbishop first
+knelt and did homage for himself and all the spiritual peers; next came
+the Princes of the blood, who merely touched the crown, kissed her left
+cheek, swore the oath of homage, and retired without kneeling; then the
+Peers in succession came&mdash;seventeen dukes, twenty-two marquises,
+ninety-four earls, twenty viscounts, and ninety-two barons. Each Peer
+knelt bareheaded, and kissed Her Majesty&#8217;s hand. Lord Rolle, who was
+upwards of eighty, stumbled and fell in going up the steps; the Queen at
+once stepped forward, and held out her hand to assist him. While the Peers
+were doing homage, the Earl of Surrey, Treasurer of the Household, threw
+silver coronation medals about the choir and lower galleries; and when the
+homage was completed the Members of the House of Commons, who occupied a
+special gallery, indicated their loyalty by giving nine lusty cheers. It
+was almost a quarter to four when the procession came back along the nave.
+The return cavalcade along the streets was even more attractive than that
+of the morning, for the royal and noble personages now wore their
+coronets, and the Queen her crown. The crown was especially admired. That
+which had been made for George IV. weighed upwards of seven pounds, and as
+it was considered too heavy for the Queen, a new one was constructed by
+Messrs. Rundell and Bridge, of less than half the weight. It was formed of
+hoops of silver, covered with precious stones, over a cap of rich<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_83" id="Page_83">[Pg 83]</a></span> blue
+velvet, surmounted with a ball enriched by diamonds. Amongst its other
+gems was a large heart-shaped ruby, which had been worn by the Black
+Prince; this was set in front.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">CORONATION FESTIVITIES.</div>
+
+<p>In the evening the Queen entertained a hundred guests to dinner at
+Buckingham Palace, and at a late hour witnessed from the roof the
+fireworks in the Green Park. At Apsley House, the Duke of Wellington gave
+a ball, to which two thousand guests were invited. All the Cabinet
+Ministers gave state dinners. A fair was held in Hyde Park on the day of
+the coronation&mdash;Thursday&mdash;and until the end of the week. The area allotted
+comprised nearly one-third of the Park. On Friday, the Queen visited the
+fair, which was studded with theatres, refreshment booths, and stalls for
+the sale of fancy articles. The illuminations and fireworks gave great
+satisfaction, as did the fact that the whole of the theatres were opened
+gratuitously at the Queen&#8217;s express desire. Among other festivities, at
+home and abroad, which succeeded and were held in honour of the coronation
+of Victoria, may be mentioned a grand review by Her Majesty in Hyde Park;
+a magnificent banquet at the Guildhall, at which the old Waterloo
+antagonists, Wellington and Soult, were toasted in combination; the
+feasting of 13,000 persons on one spot at Cambridge; the laying of the
+first stone of the St. George&#8217;s Hall, at Liverpool, and at Leghorn of an
+English Protestant Church; and a great public dinner, in Paris, presided
+over by Sir Sidney Smith, the hero of St. Jean d&#8217;Acre.</p>
+
+
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p><p>&nbsp;</p>
+<hr style="width: 50%;" />
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_84" id="Page_84">[Pg 84]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XI" id="CHAPTER_XI"></a>CHAPTER XI.</h2>
+<p class="title">THE BEDCHAMBER PLOT.</p>
+
+<div class="note"><p class="hang">Resignation of Lord Melbourne&#8217;s Cabinet&mdash;Sir Robert Peel sent
+for&mdash;Fails to Form a Cabinet&mdash;His Explanation&mdash;The Queen Refuses to
+Dismiss her Ladies of the Bedchamber&mdash;Supported by her late
+Ministers&mdash;Sir Robert Peel&#8217;s Objections&mdash;The Queen will not give
+way&mdash;The Whigs recalled to Power&mdash;Public Opinion on the Dispute&mdash;The
+Whig Ministers blamed, but the Queen exculpated.</p></div>
+
+
+<p>In April, 1839, Lord Melbourne&#8217;s administration, which had been rapidly
+losing its once great popularity, obtained only the small and nominal
+majority of five, in a very important matter connected with the government
+of Jamaica. The Ministers accordingly tendered their resignations early in
+May, and Her Majesty was graciously pleased to accept them. As usual under
+such circumstances, the Parliament was prorogued for a few days. After the
+lapse of a week, the Houses re-assembled, and Lord John Russell, who had
+been the Whig leader of the House, immediately rose and said that since he
+had last addressed them, Sir Robert Peel had received authority from Her
+Majesty to form a new Administration, and that the attempt of the Right
+Honourable Baronet having failed, Her Majesty had been graciously pleased
+to permit that gentleman to state the circumstances which had led to that
+failure.</p>
+
+<p>On her accession, the Queen had left the selection of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_85" id="Page_85">[Pg 85]</a></span> the Ladies of the
+Household entirely to her uncle Sussex, and Lord Melbourne&mdash;the one of
+whom had been a Whig all his life, and the other, though but a
+comparatively recent convert, was the head of the Whig party. They had
+somewhat indiscreetly selected at least all the important female members
+of the Household, those to whom a young girl would be likely to look up
+confidingly for information and guidance, from the ranks of the Whig
+aristocracy. On Tuesday, the 29th of May, the resignations of the
+Melbourne Cabinet were announced to Parliament. The next day, at two
+o&#8217;clock, in answer to her summons, Sir Robert Peel waited upon the Queen.
+She had first sent for the Duke of Wellington, but he recommended his
+former lieutenant and future leader as premier. The Queen, with
+characteristic truthfulness, which was none the less admirable that it was
+too girlishly outspoken to be judicious, or at all in accordance with the
+spirit of the constitution, at once greeted Sir Robert with an avowal that
+she was much grieved to part with her late Ministers, whose conduct she
+entirely approved. This was rather an awkward beginning. Nevertheless, he
+proceeded with the formation of his Cabinet, and the next day submitted a
+list of names to the Queen, including the Duke of Wellington, Lords
+Lyndhurst, Aberdeen, Ellenborough, Stanley, Sir James Graham, and Mr.
+Goulburn. As to the Household, he had hardly thought about it, and indeed
+he said he did not know who constituted the female part of it. He took the
+Red Book to learn who they were, and was at once struck with the
+completeness of the arrangements for surrounding the Queen with the
+nearest<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_86" id="Page_86">[Pg 86]</a></span> relations of the Whig Ministers. For example, he afterwards put
+this point most strongly to the House:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>Sir, let me take that particular question on which my difficulty would
+arise. Who can conceal from himself that my difficulties were not
+Canada; that my difficulties were not Jamaica; that my difficulties
+were Ireland? (ironical cheers). I admit it freely, and thank you for
+the confirmation of my argument which these cheers afford. And what is
+the fact? I, undertaking to be a Minister of the Crown, and wishing to
+carry on public affairs through the intervention of the present House
+of Commons, in order that I might exempt the country from the
+agitation, and, possibly, the peril of a dissolution&mdash;I, upon that
+very question in a minority of upwards of twenty members. A majority
+of twenty-two had decided in favour of the policy of the Irish
+Government [that is, of the Irish policy of Lord Melbourne]. The chief
+members of the Irish Government, whose policy was so approved of, were
+the Marquis of Normanby, and the noble lord opposite, the member for
+Yorkshire [Lord Morpeth, afterwards the Earl of Carlisle]. By whom are
+the chief offices in the Household at this moment held? By the sister
+of Lord Morpeth [the Duchess of Sutherland], and the wife of the
+Marquis of Normanby. But the question is&mdash;Would it be considered by
+the public that a Minister had the confidence of the Crown, when the
+relatives of his immediate political opponents held the highest
+offices about the person of the Sovereign? My impression decidedly was
+that I should not appear to the country to be in possession of that
+confidence; and that impression I could not overcome; and upon that
+impression I resolved to act. Who were my political opponents? Why, of
+the two I have named, one, the Marquis of Normanby, was publicly
+stated to be a candidate for the very same office which it was
+proposed I should fill&mdash;namely, the office of Prime Minister. The
+other noble lord has been designated as the leader of this House; and
+I know not why his talents might not justify his appointment, in case
+of the retirement of his predecessor. Is it possible&mdash;I ask you to go
+back to other times; take Pitt, or Fox, or any other Minister of this
+proud country, and answer for yourselves this question&mdash;is it fitting
+that one man shall be the Minister, responsible for the most arduous
+charge that can fall to the lot of man, and that the wife of the
+other&mdash;that other his most formidable political enemy&mdash;shall, with his
+express consent, hold office in immediate attendance on the
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_87" id="Page_87">[Pg 87]</a></span>Sovereign? Oh no! I felt it was impossible&mdash;I could not consent to
+this. Yes, feelings more powerful than reasoning on those precedents
+told me that it was not for my own honour or the public interests that
+I should consent to be Minister of England. The public interests may
+suffer nothing by my abandonment of that high trust; the public
+interests may suffer nothing by my eternal exclusion from power; but
+the public interests would suffer, and I should be abandoning my duty
+to myself, my country, and, above all, to the Queen my sovereign, if I
+were to consent to hold power on conditions which I felt to be&mdash;which
+I had the strongest conviction were&mdash;incompatible with the authority
+and with the duty of a Prime Minister.</p></div>
+
+<div class="sidenote">THE QUEEN AND SIR ROBERT PEEL.</div>
+
+<p>Sir Robert had informed Her Majesty that he did not propose any change in
+the offices in question below the grade of Ladies of the Bedchamber. He
+took it for granted that the ladies who held higher offices would save him
+any appearance of want of courtesy by voluntarily resigning. Ere this,
+however, had been stated, the Queen having expressed a desire that her own
+and her mother&#8217;s old friend, Lord Liverpool (who, it may be remarked, was
+of the Tory party), should be appointed to some office, Sir Robert at once
+requested the Queen&#8217;s permission to offer him the office of Lord Steward,
+or any other which he might select. The only other names which he
+submitted to her were those of Lords Ashley (now Shaftesbury), and Sydney.
+So far all was well. But when he went on to say that he was most ready to
+apply a similar principle to, and consult Her Majesty&#8217;s wishes in, the
+selection of her ladies, the Queen remarked that she should reserve all
+these appointments, and indeed did not intend to make any present change.
+In a subsequent interview with the Duke of Wellington, the Queen
+reiterated the same desire and intention. Meanwhile, after her interviews<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_88" id="Page_88">[Pg 88]</a></span>
+with Peel and Wellington, Her Majesty sent for Lord John Russell, and put
+the direct question to him, Was she right in her determination? He at once
+replied that she was right; on which she na&iuml;vely asked him to support her
+now, as she had supported the Cabinet of which he had been a member. Lord
+John having consulted Lord Melbourne, they called their ex-colleagues
+together, and advised the Queen to send the following note to Sir Robert
+Peel, which she did:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+<p class="right">Buckingham Palace, May 10, 1839.</p>
+
+<p>The Queen, having considered the proposal made to her yesterday by Sir
+Robert Peel, to remove the Ladies of her Bedchamber, cannot consent to
+adopt a course which she conceives to be contrary to usage and
+repugnant to her feelings.</p></div>
+
+<p>On receipt of this, Sir Robert Peel, acting in perfect concert with the
+Duke of Wellington, communicated with Her Majesty in a remarkably
+courteous letter, of which this was the concluding and decisive
+paragraph:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>Having had the opportunity, through your Majesty&#8217;s gracious
+consideration, of reflecting upon this point, he humbly submits to
+your Majesty that he is reluctantly compelled, by a sense of public
+duty and of the interest of your Majesty&#8217;s service, to adhere to the
+opinion which he ventured to express to your Majesty. He trusts he may
+be permitted, at the same time, to express to your Majesty his
+grateful acknowledgments for the distinction which your Majesty
+conferred upon him, by requiring his advice and assistance in the
+attempt to form an Administration, and his earnest prayers that
+whatever arrangements your Majesty may be enabled to make for that
+purpose, may be most conducive to your Majesty&#8217;s personal comfort and
+happiness, and to the promotion of the public welfare.</p></div>
+
+<div class="sidenote">WELLINGTON AND LORD MELBOURNE.</div>
+
+<p>It was generally believed at the time, as Sir Archibald Alison himself
+confesses, that Peel did not regret this royal rebuff; for &#8220;he was by no
+means sanguine,&#8221;<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_89" id="Page_89">[Pg 89]</a></span> says the Tory historiographer, &#8220;as to the success of his
+mission, nor annoyed at the failure of the attempt to fulfil it.&#8221; The
+<i>pro</i> and <i>con</i> were put with equal terseness and skill by Lord Melbourne
+and the Duke of Wellington. The words of the latter were:&mdash;&#8220;It is
+essential that the Minister should possess the entire confidence of Her
+Majesty, and with that view should exercise the usual control permitted to
+the Minister by the Sovereign in the construction of the Household. There
+is the greatest possible difference between the <i>Household of the Queen
+Consort and the Household of the Queen Regnant</i>&mdash;that of the former, who
+is not a political personage, being comparatively of little importance.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Lord Melbourne, on the other hand, thus justified the advice which his
+Royal Mistress had received from him and adopted:&mdash;&#8220;I frankly declare that
+I resume office unequivocally and solely for this reason, that I will not
+abandon my Sovereign in a situation of difficulty and distress, and
+especially when a demand is made upon Her Majesty with which, I think, she
+ought not to comply&mdash;a demand inconsistent with her personal honour, and
+which, if acquiesced in, would render her reign liable to all the changes
+and variations of political parties, and render her domestic life one
+constant scene of unhappiness and discomfort.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>The public at large, even those who thought her <i>action</i> wrong, accorded
+to the Queen sympathy rather than blame. It was well known that she had
+been dexterously surrounded by the wives and sisters and daughters of the
+great Whigs, and that on these ladies all her ardent and girlish
+affections were bestowed. This made the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_90" id="Page_90">[Pg 90]</a></span> people all the more angry that
+the male heads of the Whig houses now gave her unconstitutional advice.
+Not only her youth and inexperience, but the very warmth of the affection
+which she had displayed, and, above all, the fact that she was the chief
+sufferer on the occasion, all pleaded for her. Indeed, it may be said that
+the quickly-forgotten &#8220;Bedchamber Plot&#8221; rather endeared the Sovereign to
+her subjects than otherwise. Both of her uncles who preceded her on the
+throne had been exceedingly capricious and disloyal to their ministers.
+Under these reigns there was a constant sense, in the breasts of ministers
+and in the breasts of the people, of the precariousness of the existence
+of even the most popular cabinets. It certainly cannot be said that in the
+early summer of 1839 Lord Melbourne&#8217;s cabinet was popular. Nevertheless,
+though the ministers were blamed, the people were charmed by the Queen&#8217;s
+ingenuousness, bravery, and steadiness of attachment. It is but just to
+state that on every future occasion of the change of an Administration,
+the Queen has, without the slightest demur, conceded the point, the
+consideration of which we now dismiss. And with the transparent candour of
+her nature, Her Majesty has caused it to be made known that the Prince
+Consort had much to do with producing this result.</p>
+
+
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p><p>&nbsp;</p>
+<hr style="width: 50%;" />
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_91" id="Page_91">[Pg 91]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XII" id="CHAPTER_XII"></a>CHAPTER XII.</h2>
+<p class="title">COURTSHIP AND BETROTHAL.</p>
+
+<div class="note"><p class="hang">Desire of the Coburg Relatives for a Marriage between Victoria and
+Albert&mdash;Favourable Impressions mutually made by Victoria and
+Albert&mdash;Prince Albert&#8217;s Letter on the Queen&#8217;s Accession&mdash;Opposition of
+King William IV. to the Marriage&mdash;Correspondence between the
+Cousins&mdash;King Leopold urges on the Marriage&mdash;The Queen&#8217;s Reluctance to
+become Betrothed&mdash;Her subsequent Regret at this&mdash;The Prince craves a
+definite Determination&mdash;His Second Visit to England&mdash;Betrothed at
+last&mdash;Returns to Germany to say Farewell.</p></div>
+
+
+<p>We have already seen that the marriage of Prince Albert with his cousin
+was strongly desired by their common relatives from a very early period of
+their lives. It was the &#8220;ardent wish&#8221; of their grandmother, and she freely
+communicated that wish to her son and daughter, Prince Leopold and the
+Duchess of Kent. There are strong indications that the astute King Leopold
+never lost sight of this end from the date of his mother&#8217;s death in 1831.
+Soon after the visit of the brothers to their &#8220;aunt Kent&#8221; in 1836, the
+rumour began to prevail in England that Prince Albert was the <i>fianc&eacute;</i> of
+the future Queen. The idea, however, was premature. So we know on the
+Queen&#8217;s authority, who has caused it to be stated that &#8220;nothing was then
+settled.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>In the letters which the Prince sent to his father and others, during his
+stay at Brussels and elsewhere,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_92" id="Page_92">[Pg 92]</a></span> immediately after his first visit to
+England, he made frequent reference to the general impressions thence
+derived, and especially to his young cousin. Of such allusions, this is a
+fair specimen:&mdash;&#8220;A few days ago I received a letter from aunt Kent,
+enclosing one from our cousin. She told me I was to communicate its
+contents to you, so I send it on with a translation of the English. The
+day before yesterday I received a second and yet kinder letter from my
+cousin, in which she thanks me for my good wishes on her birth-day. You
+may easily imagine that both these letters gave me great pleasure.&#8221; And
+when the news of the death of King William and the accession of Victoria
+arrived, he informed his father, on the authority of his uncle Leopold,
+that the new reign had commenced most successfully (this, perhaps, in
+allusion to the anticipated attempt at a <i>coup d&#8217;&eacute;tat</i> by the Duke of
+Cumberland), that his cousin Victoria had shown astonishing
+self-possession, although English parties were violently excited, and that
+the Duchess of Kent had found strenuous support against &#8220;violent attacks
+in the newspapers.&#8221; This last statement we have, however, good reasons for
+saying had reached the young Prince in a somewhat exaggerated form; we
+mean, so far as the &#8220;violence&#8221; of the attacks was concerned.</p>
+
+<p>To the Queen herself the Prince wrote a letter, consolatory in her
+bereavement, and congratulatory on her accession. This was the first
+letter which he sent her written in English. He prayed Heaven to assist
+her now that she was &#8220;Queen of the mightiest land in Europe,&#8221; with the
+happiness of millions in her hand, and asked her &#8220;to think sometimes of
+her cousins<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_93" id="Page_93">[Pg 93]</a></span> in Bonn [where they were then pursuing their University
+studies], and to continue that kindness you favoured them with till now.&#8221;</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">RUMOURS ABOUT MARRIAGE.</div>
+
+<p>On the accession of the Queen, the rumour of her marriage with Prince
+Albert became ten times more prevalent. The judicious King Leopold thought
+it wise, for a time at least, to discourage this expectation, and to
+withdraw the attention of the English from the Prince. Hence it was that
+he counselled those journeys into Austria, South Germany, Switzerland, and
+Italy, in which we have already traced the steps of the Prince. This was
+chiefly dictated by the distracted state of parties in England, which the
+King of the Belgians thought it better to permit time to allay ere the
+matrimonial project was brought specifically forward. &#8220;United as all
+parties are,&#8221; wrote Prince Albert to his father, from the inspiration of
+his uncle, &#8220;in high praise of the young Queen, the more do they seem to
+man&oelig;uvre and intrigue with and against each other. On every side there
+is nothing but a network of cabals and intrigues, and parties are arrayed
+against each other in a most inexplicable manner.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Whilst making his &#8220;grand tour,&#8221; the Prince kept up an occasional
+correspondence with his cousin. From Switzerland he sent her an album of
+the places which he visited, from the top of the Rigi a dried Alpine rose,
+and from Ferney an autographic scrap of Voltaire, which he received from
+an old servant of the great philosopher.</p>
+
+<p>By the early part of 1839, the tour was concluded, and we find the Prince
+once more at Brussels with his uncle. Leopold now spoke to him more fully
+and <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_94" id="Page_94">[Pg 94]</a></span>definitely than he had hitherto done about his prospects in life and
+the state of his affections. It very clearly appears that the marriage
+with the Queen had been gradually becoming more and more an understood
+thing. It appears equally clear that the Queen was averse, as yet, to
+committing herself to a distinct and final engagement. She was willing to
+marry, but wished to defer the contraction of the union. She thought both
+herself and her cousin too young; and the interests of her people, rather
+than any personal backwardness, influenced her wish that both she and her
+husband should be older ere they became man and wife. She regretted
+afterwards this delay, and felt that the harassments of the Bedchamber
+Plot and other still more painful incidents which we have thought it
+preferable not to rake up and reproduce in these pages, would have been
+borne by her with more equanimity had she had the natural protection of a
+husband six months or a year ere the date of her marriage. It was probably
+this postponement of any definite settlement that occasioned Prince
+Albert&#8217;s absence from England at the Coronation, in June, 1838. His father
+was invited, and received at the hands of his niece the honour of the
+Order of the Garter. The Dowager Duchess of Gotha was very proud of this,
+and proud also to recollect that her son-in-law possessed the noblest
+knightly order of Christendom, which her own father of Hesse-Cassel, and
+her father-in-law of Gotha, had also worn and treasured.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">OBJECTIONS TO THE MARRIAGE.</div>
+
+<p>In more than one quarter the marriage, which all members of the Coburg
+family felt to be so eligible, and in which their feelings were so much
+involved, met with a considerable amount of opposition. By a curious<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_95" id="Page_95">[Pg 95]</a></span>
+coincidence, a Prince of Orange had been the suitor favoured by George IV.
+for the hand of his daughter; but she selected the man of her own
+choice&mdash;Leopold, a Coburg Prince. And a Prince of Orange (nephew of the
+rejected aspirant to the hand of the Princess Charlotte) was the man
+thought by William IV., as long as he lived, to be the best future husband
+of his niece and successor; and his niece, too, selected, like her cousin
+Charlotte, as the man of her choice, a Prince of the House of Coburg. King
+William did all in his power to discourage the attachment between Victoria
+and Albert. He was so strongly set against this match that he did all that
+he could even to prevent Prince Albert&#8217;s visit to England in 1836; and
+although he never spoke to his young niece on the subject himself, she
+afterwards learned that he had devised no fewer than five matrimonial
+alternatives for her selection&mdash;that of the late Prince Alexander of the
+Netherlands always having the preference and priority. In justice to the
+memory of King William it must, however, be stated that the Dowager Queen
+Adelaide afterwards told her niece that her uncle would never have striven
+to control or restrain her affections if he had had any idea that they had
+been strongly bestowed in any particular quarter.</p>
+
+<p>It was in the early part of 1839, that King Leopold first wrote seriously
+to his niece on the subject&mdash;about the same time that we have seen that he
+made a similar verbal communication to his nephew. He received a
+favourable response from both, but with this difference, that the lady
+craved an indefinite delay. This idea of delay the Prince dealt with in a
+very honest and manly manner. He had, he said, no objections to
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_96" id="Page_96">[Pg 96]</a></span>postponement; but, nevertheless, thought he had a fair right, if he were
+to keep himself free, and thereby be compelled to decline any other career
+or line of life which might open itself out to him, to have some definite
+assurance or understanding that the engagement would be without doubt
+contracted. This concession, however, the equally natural bashfulness of
+the Queen would not suffer her to make. However, all came right in the
+end, and the Queen has very candidly confessed in her riper years, that if
+she had known as a girl what she afterwards learned as a woman, that she
+even seemed to be <i>playing</i> with her somewhat undemonstrative but not the
+less devoted lover, she would not have exacted the semi-sacrifice which
+the Prince&#8217;s self-respect caused him to feel uneasy at, but to which the
+true courtesy of his nature induced him to submit. He <i>did</i> wait till
+1839, but the Queen afterwards learned that he came to England in that
+year prepared to declare that, in the case of further postponement, he
+must decline to consider himself bound in any way for the future.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">FIRST MEETING WITH PRINCE ALBERT.</div>
+
+<p>In October, 1839, Prince Albert, with his brother, set out from Brussels
+to England, to urge his final suit. Ere leaving Germany, he had spent a
+very pleasant time with his cousin, Count Albert Mensdorff, who was doing
+military duty with the garrison of Mayence. They then made a short journey
+together, in the course of which the one cousin confided the great secret
+to the other. &#8220;During our journey,&#8221; writes the Count, &#8220;Albert confided to
+me, under the seal of the strictest confidence, that he was going to
+England to make your acquaintance, and that if you liked each other you
+were to be engaged.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_97" id="Page_97">[Pg 97]</a></span> He spoke very seriously about the difficulties of the
+position he would have to occupy in England, but hoped that dear uncle
+Leopold would assist him with his advice.&#8221; The Princes&mdash;Albert bearing
+with him a shrewd and significant letter to the Queen from King
+Leopold&mdash;arrived at Windsor on the 10th of October, where they were
+cordially received by their cousin and aunt. The Queen was much struck
+with the greatly improved appearance of the Prince, in the interval of
+three years since she had last seen him. Gay and festive entertainments
+had been arranged in their honour immediately upon their arrival. The
+Queen became more and more charmed with her cousin, and within a week
+after his arrival, she informed her Premier, Lord Melbourne, that she had
+made up her mind to the marriage. In reply, he indicated his own perfect
+satisfaction, and added that the nation was getting anxious that its
+sovereign should be married; and then he said, in a kindly way, &#8220;You will
+be much more comfortable; for a woman cannot stand alone for any time, in
+whatever position she may be.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>The following we present, without professing either to confirm or question
+its accuracy, but simply as being the commonly-received report, at the
+time, of the manner in which the engagement was finally effected between
+the parties directly interested:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>The Prince, in his turn, played the part of a royal lover with all the
+grace peculiar to his house. He never willingly absented himself from
+the Queen&#8217;s society and presence, and her every wish was anticipated
+with the alacrity of an unfeigned attachment. At length Her Majesty,
+having wholly made up her mind as to the issue of this visit, found
+herself in some measure embarrassed as to the fit and proper means of
+indicating her preference to the Prince. This was<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_98" id="Page_98">[Pg 98]</a></span> a perplexing task,
+but the Queen acquitted herself of it with equal delicacy and tact. At
+one of the Palace balls she took occasion to present her bouquet to
+the Prince at the conclusion of a dance, and the hint was not lost
+upon the polite and gallant German. His close uniform, buttoned up to
+the throat, did not admit of his placing the Persian-like gift where
+it would be most honoured; so he immediately drew his penknife and cut
+a slit in his dress in the neighbourhood of his heart, where he
+gracefully deposited the happy omen. Again, to announce to the Privy
+Council her intended union was an easy duty in comparison to that of
+intimating her wishes to the principal party concerned; and here, too,
+it is said that our Sovereign Lady displayed unusual presence of mind
+and female ingenuity. The Prince was expressing the grateful sense
+which he entertained of his reception in England, and the delight
+which he experienced during his stay from the kind attentions of
+royalty, when the Queen, very naturally and very pointedly, put to him
+the question upon which their future fates depended: &#8220;If, indeed, your
+Highness is so much pleased with this country, perhaps you would not
+object to remaining in it, and making it your home?&#8221; No one can doubt
+the reply.</p></div>
+
+<div class="sidenote">THE BETROTHAL.</div>
+
+<p>The day after the Queen&#8217;s communication to her Premier, she caused an
+intimation to be conveyed to her lover that she desired to see him in
+private. The Prince at once waited upon her, and after a few minutes&#8217;
+general conversation, the Queen told him why she had sent for him, and
+modestly but plainly said that she was quite willing now to undertake the
+bond of betrothal. Of course, there was only one possible response, and
+the Prince joyously wrote the next day to his trusty friend and tried
+counsellor, Baron Stockmar, &#8220;on one of the happiest days of his life, to
+give him the most welcome news.&#8221; The betrothal was at once communicated to
+Prince Ernest, to King Leopold, and to the Duke of Coburg. From these and
+other relatives to whom the news, as yet to be kept a family secret, was
+sent, the warmest felicitations quickly poured in. Leopold wrote,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_99" id="Page_99">[Pg 99]</a></span>
+commending Albert in the highest terms, and emphatically congratulating
+Victoria on having secured an unmistakably good husband, concluding with
+the prayer, &#8220;May Albert be able to strew roses without thorns on the
+pathway of life of our good Victoria!&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>The Queen had intended to make her first formal announcement of her
+intended marriage to her Parliament; but on second thoughts, she altered
+her resolve, and selected her Privy Council as the first official
+recipients of the tidings. Of course, the Ministers had been already
+confidentially informed of the Queen&#8217;s purpose; and they strongly
+counselled an early union, and both Queen and Prince acquiesced in the
+proposal. After happy and rapturous days of undoubted and now
+freely-acknowledged attachment, the Princes returned to Germany, on the
+14th of November, after a visit lasting just five weeks; Ernest to return
+to his military duties, Albert to say farewell to friends and fatherland,
+ere finally returning to the region of his new life and love.</p>
+
+
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p><p>&nbsp;</p>
+<hr style="width: 50%;" />
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_100" id="Page_100">[Pg 100]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XIII" id="CHAPTER_XIII"></a>CHAPTER XIII.</h2>
+<p class="title">THE QUEEN WEDDED.</p>
+
+<div class="note"><p class="hang">Announcement of the intended Marriage to the Privy Council and
+Parliament&mdash;Parliamentary Settlement of the Prince&#8217;s Rank,
+&amp;c.&mdash;Annoying Circumstances&mdash;The Prince&#8217;s Protestantism&mdash;His
+Income&mdash;Arrival of the Bridegroom&mdash;Receives a National Welcome&mdash;The
+Wedding&mdash;Honeymoon spent at Windsor.</p></div>
+
+
+<p>On the day after the departure of the Princes, the Queen wrote letters to
+the Queen Dowager, and the other members of the Royal Family, informing
+them of her intended marriage, and received kind letters in return from
+all. A few days later she and her mother came from Windsor to Buckingham
+Palace, where Lord Melbourne submitted the draft of the proposed
+Declaration to the Privy Council. His Lordship told the Queen that the
+Cabinet had unanimously agreed that &pound;50,000 would be an appropriate annual
+allowance for the Prince, and that they anticipated no Parliamentary
+opposition to that amount. He also stated that there had been a stupid
+attempt to make it out that he was a Roman Catholic, and that &#8220;he was
+afraid to say anything about his religion,&#8221; and accordingly had not
+touched upon it in the Declaration. This turned out, as we shall see, a
+very unwise omission; it actually gave colour and consistency to the
+absurd report.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">ANNOUNCEMENT OF THE BETROTHAL.</div>
+
+<p>On the 23rd of November, eighty-three members of the Privy Council met in
+Buckingham Palace. Precisely<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_101" id="Page_101">[Pg 101]</a></span> at two the Queen entered. She evinced much
+natural agitation, but was considerably reassured by a kindly and paternal
+look from her staunch friend, Lord Melbourne; whereupon she read the
+Declaration, which ran thus:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>I have caused you to be summoned at the present time in order that I
+may acquaint you with my resolution in a matter which deeply concerns
+the welfare of my people, and the happiness of my future life. It is
+my intention to ally myself in marriage with the Prince Albert of
+Saxe-Coburg and Gotha. Deeply impressed with the solemnity of the
+engagement which I am about to contract, I have not come to this
+decision without mature consideration, nor without feeling a strong
+assurance that, with the blessing of Almighty God, it will at once
+secure my domestic felicity and serve the interests of my country. I
+have thought fit to make this resolution known to you at the earliest
+period, in order that you may be apprised of a matter so highly
+important to me and to my kingdom, and which, I persuade myself, will
+be most acceptable to all my loving subjects.</p></div>
+
+<p>The moment the Queen had read the Declaration, Lord Lansdowne rose and
+asked, in the name of the Council, that &#8220;this most gracious and most
+welcome communication might be printed.&#8221; Leave was granted, and Her
+Majesty left the room, the whole ceremony having occupied only two or
+three minutes. The Duke of Cambridge followed his niece into the
+ante-room, and warmly congratulated her. The Declaration appeared in the
+next <i>Gazette</i>, whence it was copied into all the newspapers, and was
+joyfully read and received over the whole land.</p>
+
+<p>There were now important questions to be settled, in Parliament, in the
+Council, and by the exercise of the Royal prerogative, as to the future
+rank and station of the Prince. Such were&mdash;Should he be made a peer? as
+had been the last consort of an English Queen, Prince George of Denmark,
+the husband of Queen Anne, of whom the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_102" id="Page_102">[Pg 102]</a></span> only good thing that can be said
+is, that he accidentally made Arbuthnot, Pope&#8217;s great friend and
+fellow-labourer, his Court physician. The idea of being made a peer was
+strenuously, sensibly, and successfully resisted by the Prince. Then there
+were the practical questions of his naturalisation, the selection of his
+Household, his position in the scale of precedence, and his income. So far
+as the Prince legitimately could and did meddle with the solution of these
+knotty points, he showed, when necessary, great sagacity, and a firmness
+very wondrous in one so young. From the very moment of his betrothal, he
+regarded himself as the custodian and guardian of his future wife&#8217;s,
+rather than his own, independent position and unfettered dignity. It was
+not himself, but the husband of the Queen on behalf of whom he took a firm
+line.</p>
+
+<p>The Queen wished to give her husband precedence next after herself. Some
+difficulty was experienced in procuring the consent of the Royal Dukes,
+but at last their scruples were removed. Only the King of Hanover
+stubbornly held out, and the Duke of Wellington, in the House of Peers,
+declined on behalf of his party to consent. The proposal was, therefore,
+withdrawn from Parliament, but shortly after the Queen conferred a patent
+of precedence by the exercise of her own prerogative. On a similar matter
+of dispute, it was not until the Prince himself had pointed out the
+unaccountably overlooked precedent of the privilege as enjoyed by Prince
+Leopold in the life-time of the Princess Charlotte, that Garter
+King-at-Arms could be induced to withdraw his opinion adverse to Prince
+Albert quartering the Royal Arms of England with his own.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_103" id="Page_103">[Pg 103]</a></span>In the matter of his Household, the Prince&#8217;s own admirable judgment solved
+the difficulty with the clear adroitness of honest simplicity. He
+stipulated that considerations of party should have nothing to do with
+these appointments; that they should be filled by men of undoubted probity
+and purity of character; and he indicated his decided wish that they
+should be men of some kind of eminence; either very rich, very clever, or
+men who had deserved well of their country in the field of science or of
+arms. These wishes, to the Prince&#8217;s considerable annoyance, were not all
+closely followed out.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">ANNOUNCEMENT TO PARLIAMENT.</div>
+
+<p>The Queen was tremendously cheered when, in January, 1840, she went to
+open Parliament, and no doubt was left in her mind as to the thorough
+popularity of the proposed union. The announcement of her intention
+contained in the Speech was a virtual repetition of that already made to
+the Council. From both sides of both Houses she was personally
+congratulated, and her choice approved, but the Duke of Wellington
+strongly objected to the omission of the statement that the Prince was a
+Protestant, with some shrewdness attributing its absence to Melbourne&#8217;s
+reluctance to irritate his Irish Catholic supporters. The Duke at the same
+time repeated again and again his own perfect personal conviction in the
+thorough fidelity of the Prince to the historic and heroic Protestantism
+of his race. Lord Brougham spoke on this point, and very pertinently: &#8220;I
+may remark,&#8221; he said, &#8220;that my noble friend (Lord Melbourne) is mistaken
+as to the law. There is no prohibition as to marriage with a Catholic. It
+is only attended with a penalty, and that penalty <i>is merely the
+forfeiture of the Crown</i>.&#8221; In spite of this, a sentence asserting the fact
+of the Prince&#8217;s Protestantism was,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_104" id="Page_104">[Pg 104]</a></span> at the Duke of Wellington&#8217;s instance,
+inserted in the Address agreed to in answer to the Speech from the Throne.</p>
+
+<p>There remained only the question of the Prince&#8217;s annuity. Ministers
+proposed &pound;50,000. A very large majority negatived a proposal by Mr. Hume
+to reduce it to &pound;20,000. But the Tory leaders supported a proposal of
+Colonel Sibthorpe&#8217;s to reduce it to &pound;30,000, and by a considerable
+majority this was carried. The Queen, and her uncle Leopold, were
+extremely angry at the time at what they conceived to be the personal
+slight conveyed in this fact. But the Queen, under the wise and placable
+guidance of the Prince, afterwards learned to attribute it to the then
+heat of party rancour, still unallayed after the Bedchamber dispute; and
+the Prince at an early period of his residence in England contracted warm
+and abiding friendships with many of the men who had most strongly
+resisted Ministers on each of the above contested points.</p>
+
+<p>On the 28th of January, Prince Albert, accompanied by Lord Torrington and
+Colonel (now General) Grey, who had been sent to invest him with the
+insignia of the Garter and conduct him in due state to England, set out
+from Gotha, as we have already seen at a previous page. He was also
+accompanied by his father and brother. After a passing visit to King
+Leopold at Brussels, they were met at Calais by Lord Clarence Paget, who
+commanded the <i>Firebrand</i>, and escorted the distinguished visitors to the
+shores of England, at which they arrived on the 6th of February. After
+magnificent and most hearty receptions at Dover and Canterbury, they
+reached Buckingham Palace in the afternoon of Saturday, the 8th of
+February,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_105" id="Page_105">[Pg 105]</a></span> where the Prince found his bride standing with her mother at
+the door, ready to be the first to meet and to greet him. Half an hour
+later, the Lord Chancellor administered the oath of naturalisation, and
+the Prince became a subject of Queen Victoria. A grand dinner to the
+Prince, the Ministers, and the great officers of State succeeded in the
+evening. The next day the Prince drove out, amid the cheers of immense
+crowds, to pay formal visits to all the members of the Royal Family.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">THE WEDDING.</div>
+
+<p>Monday, the 10th, was the day appointed for the wedding, which was
+magnificently celebrated in the Chapel Royal of St. James&#8217;s Palace. On the
+morning of that day a larger crowd assembled in St. James&#8217;s Park and its
+approaches than had been collected together in the metropolis since the
+rejoicings at the visit of the Allied Sovereigns in 1814. Not even the
+extreme inclemency of the weather abated either the patience or enthusiasm
+of the multitude. After the ladies and gentlemen of the Households of the
+Queen and the Prince had been driven along the Mall from the palace of
+residence to the palace of state, and the carriages which conveyed them
+had returned, the bridegroom was notified that all was in readiness for
+his departure. He set out, dressed as a British field-marshal, and with
+all the insignia of the Garter, the jewels of which had been a personal
+present from the Queen, having on one side his father and on the other his
+brother, both in military uniforms. He entered his carriage amid
+tremendous cheers, and the enthusiastic waving of handkerchiefs by a bevy
+of ladies privileged to stand in the grand lobbies of the palace, and was
+escorted to the chapel by a squadron of the Life Guards. On the return of
+the carriages which carried the Prince and his<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_106" id="Page_106">[Pg 106]</a></span> company, Her Majesty was
+in turn apprised that all was in readiness for her departure. She, too,
+was enthusiastically received, &#8220;but her eye was bent principally upon the
+ground.&#8221; In the same carriage with the Queen rode the Duchesses of Kent
+and Sutherland. It was noticed as she drove along that she was extremely
+pale, and looked very anxious, though two or three incidents in the crowd
+caused her to smile.</p>
+
+<p>On her arrival at her palace of St. James&#8217;s, the Queen was conducted to
+the Presence Chamber, where she remained with her maids-of-honour and
+trainbearers, awaiting the Lord Chamberlain&#8217;s summons to the altar.
+Meanwhile, the colonnade within the palace, along which the bridal
+procession had to pass and repass, had been filled since early morn by the
+&eacute;lite of England&#8217;s rank and beauty. Each side of the way was a parterre of
+white robes, white relieved with blue, white and green, amber, crimson,
+purple, fawn, and stone colour. All wore wedding favours of lace,
+orange-flower blossoms, or silver bullion, some of great size, and many in
+most exquisite taste. Most of the gentlemen were in court dress; and the
+scene during the patient hours of waiting was made picturesque by the
+passing to and fro in various garbs of burly yeomen of the guard, armed
+with their massive halberts, slight-built gentlemen-at-arms, with
+partisans of equal slightness; elderly pages of state, and pretty pages of
+honour; officers of the Lord Chamberlain, and officers of the Woods and
+Forests; heralds all embroidery, and cuirassiers in polished steel;
+prelates in their rochets, and priests in their stoles, and singing boys
+in their surplices of virgin white.</p>
+
+<p>Within the chapel, in which the altar was magnificently<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_107" id="Page_107">[Pg 107]</a></span> decorated and
+laden with a profusion of gold plate, four state chairs were set, varying
+in splendour according to the rank of the destined occupants, respectively
+for Her Majesty, Prince Albert, the Queen Dowager, and the Duchess of
+Kent. The Archbishops of Canterbury and York, and the Bishop of London,
+having taken their places within the altar-rails, a flourish of trumpets
+announced the procession of the bridegroom. As the Prince passed along,
+the gentlemen greeted him with loud clapping of the hands, and the ladies
+waved their handkerchiefs with at least equal enthusiasm.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">THE BRIDESMAIDS.</div>
+
+<p>In a few minutes the procession of the bride was announced by trumpets and
+drums. It was of six or seven times the numerical strength of the
+bridegroom&#8217;s, and the beauty of the twelve bridesmaids, all daughters of
+peers of the three highest grades, was specially commended. The Duchess of
+Cambridge led by the hand her then child-daughter, the Princess Mary, &#8220;and
+the mother of so beautiful a child was certainly not to be seen without
+much interest.&#8221; The Duchess of Kent appeared &#8220;disconsolate and
+distressed;&#8221; while the Duke of Sussex, who was to give away the bride, was
+&#8220;in excellent spirits.&#8221; The Queen herself looked &#8220;anxious and excited, and
+paler even than usual.&#8221; She was dressed in a rich white satin, trimmed
+with orange-flower blossoms. She wore a wreath of the same, over which was
+a veil of rich Honiton lace, worn so as not to conceal her face. She wore
+as jewels the Collar of the Order of the Garter, with a diamond necklace
+and earrings. The bridesmaids were the Ladies Adelaide Paget, Sarah
+Villiers, Frances Cowper, Elizabeth West, Mary Grimston, Eleanor Paget,
+Caroline Lennox, Elizabeth Howard,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_108" id="Page_108">[Pg 108]</a></span> Ida Hay, Catherine Stanhope, Jane
+Bouverie, and Mary Howard.</p>
+
+<p>After the conclusion of the marriage rite, the Queen hastily crossed to
+the opposite side of the altar, and kissed the Queen Dowager, who was
+standing there. She then took Prince Albert&#8217;s hand, and passed down the
+aisle. On the return to Buckingham Palace, it was observed that the
+Prince, still retaining the Queen&#8217;s hand in his own, whether by accident
+or design, held it in such a way as to display the wedding-ring, which was
+more solid than is usual in ordinary weddings. When the Queen had been led
+into the palace by her husband, it was observed that her morning paleness
+had entirely passed off, and that she entered her own halls with an open,
+joyous, and slightly flushed countenance.</p>
+
+<p>After the wedding breakfast the young couple departed, at a quarter before
+four, for Windsor, amid the cheers of the undiminished multitude. Her
+Majesty&#8217;s travelling dress was a white satin pelisse, trimmed with
+swansdown, with a white satin bonnet and feather. As the cort&eacute;ge passed
+rapidly up Constitution Hill, the Queen bowed in return to the cheers of
+her applauding subjects with much earnestness of manner. When the Queen
+and Prince arrived at Windsor, they found the whole town illuminated, and
+received a rapturous welcome from the citizens and the Eton boys, all
+wearing favours.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">THE WEDDING-CAKE.</div>
+
+<p>We shall conclude this chapter, which we shall not desecrate by devoting
+to any other deity than Hymen, by a brief description of the Queen&#8217;s
+wedding-cake, which, fortunately for our enterprise, we have succeeded in
+disinterring from the contemporary records. It was<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_109" id="Page_109">[Pg 109]</a></span> described by an
+eye-witness as consisting of all the most exquisite compounds of all the
+rich things with which the most expensive cakes can be composed, mingled
+and mixed together with delightful harmony by the most elaborate science
+of the confectioner. It weighed 300 pounds, was three yards in
+circumference, and fourteen inches in depth. On the top was a device of
+Britannia blessing the bride and bridegroom, who were dressed, somewhat
+incongruously, in the costume of ancient Rome. At the foot of the
+bridegroom was the figure of a dog, intended to denote fidelity; at the
+feet of the Queen a pair of turtle-doves. A host of gamboling Cupids, one
+of them registering the marriage in a book, and bouquets of white flowers
+tied with true-lovers&#8217; knots, completed the decorations.</p>
+
+
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p><p>&nbsp;</p>
+<hr style="width: 50%;" />
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_110" id="Page_110">[Pg 110]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XIV" id="CHAPTER_XIV"></a>CHAPTER XIV.</h2>
+<p class="title">EARLY YEARS OF MARRIED LIFE.</p>
+
+<div class="note"><p class="hang">Difficulties and Delicacy of Prince Albert&#8217;s Position&mdash;Early Married
+Life&mdash;Studies continued&mdash;Attempts on the Queen&#8217;s Life&mdash;Courage of the
+Queen&mdash;Birth of the Princess Royal&mdash;Parting from the Whig Ladies of
+the Bedchamber&mdash;Dark Days for England&mdash;Birth of the Prince of
+Wales&mdash;The Queen described by M. Guizot&mdash;A Dinner at Buckingham
+Palace&mdash;State Dinner at Windsor.</p></div>
+
+
+<p>The Queen was now married to the husband of her choice. &#8220;It is that,&#8221; said
+Lord Melbourne to her, &#8220;which makes your Majesty&#8217;s marriage so popular, as
+they know it is not for state reasons.&#8221; A few months after the
+wedding-day, the Prince wrote to an old college associate&mdash;&#8220;I am very
+happy and contented.&#8221; After the wedding, the young couple stayed for four
+days at Windsor, reading, riding, walking together, and giving small
+dinner parties in the evening. They then returned to Buckingham Palace,
+where a large crowd had collected to welcome them, and fairly commenced
+the common duties of their married life. At first it would appear that
+jealousies, in quarters which need not be specified, prevented the Prince
+taking his proper position as the head of his home and household. He wrote
+to his friend, Prince L&ouml;wenstein, in May, 1840&mdash;&#8220;I am only the husband,
+not the master in the house.&#8221; But the common sense of the Queen, and the
+dignity of the Prince, soon set this matter to rights. When urged<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_111" id="Page_111">[Pg 111]</a></span> that
+she, as being Sovereign, must be the head of the house, she quietly
+rejoined that she had sworn to obey, as well as love and honour, her
+husband, and that she was determined to keep all her bridal troth. She
+communicated all foreign despatches to him, and frequently he made
+annotations on them, which were communicated to the Minister whose
+department they affected. He had often the satisfaction of discovering
+that the Minister, though he might say nothing on the subject,
+nevertheless acted upon his suggestions. His correspondence to Germany
+soon bore a very different tone and complexion. To use his own words, and
+slightly expand them, he &#8220;endeavoured to be of as much use to Victoria as
+possible.&#8221; The Queen now, having received the approval of the Duke of
+Wellington, whom she consulted as a confidential friend, for the first
+time put her husband in his proper place, by giving him, by Royal Letters
+Patent, to which Parliamentary sanction is not required, rank and
+precedence next to herself, except in Parliament and the Privy Council.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">EARLY MARRIED DAYS.</div>
+
+<p>Frequent lev&eacute;es, and &#8220;dinners followed by little dances,&#8221; formed the chief
+amusements of the young couple in the earliest stage of their married
+life. They went much, too, to the play, both having an especial relish for
+and admiration of Shakespeare. The Queen, although now a married woman, by
+no means neglected useful or solacing and refining studies. She took
+singing lessons from Lablache, and frequently sang and played with the
+Prince, sometimes using the piano, sometimes the organ as accompaniment.
+They went to Claremont, the Queen&#8217;s favourite youthful haunt, to celebrate
+her birthday, and continued to do so, even after the purchase<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_112" id="Page_112">[Pg 112]</a></span> of Osborne,
+until 1848, when Claremont was given as a residence to the ex-Queen of the
+French. Both Queen and Prince were extremely glad to get away from the
+smoke and grime of London. In fact, these constituted a peculiar source of
+physical oppression to both; and they were always glad to retire to the
+rural quiet and seclusion of Claremont.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">THE QUEEN SHOT AT.</div>
+
+<p>The first alarming incident of the Queen&#8217;s wedded life occurred on the
+10th of June, 1840. In her first early days of maiden queenhood, she had
+been annoyed by madmen wanting to marry her. On more than one occasion her
+saddle-horse was attempted to be stopped in the Park by one of such
+maniacs, as she was attended by an equerry; and in two instances similar
+attempts were made by innocent lunatics to force their way into Windsor
+Castle, in each case armed with nothing more deadly than a proposal of
+marriage. But what we are about to narrate was a much more serious matter.
+There is no denying the fact, that, after the first two years of her
+reign, the Queen was, for a time, by no means so popular as she had been.
+Her ministers were eminently unpopular, and to no slight extent she shared
+their unpopularity. Appalling distress prevailed, and Chartism and other
+more dangerous forms of sedition were rife. The poor asked how so much
+money could be spent on the Queen&#8217;s hospitable entertainments, while they
+were starving; and inquired how it was that the name of Lord Melbourne,
+who should be supposed to have work enough to do looking after the affairs
+of the distressed nation, should appear in the newspapers almost every day
+as attending some of Her Majesty&#8217;s banquets. Occasionally during the
+summer she was received in public<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_113" id="Page_113">[Pg 113]</a></span> in silence, and once or twice, in
+theatres and elsewhere, disagreeable cries were heard. More than once
+during this and one or two succeeding years, pistol-shots were fired at
+her. We select one, and the first attack upon her, as a type of the
+others. A youth named Oxford, some seventeen or eighteen years of age,
+either a fool or a madman, fired two pistol-shots at her, as she and her
+husband were driving in a phaeton up Constitution Hill. He was at once
+arrested, and it being impossible to assign any conceivable cause for the
+act, he was declared insane, and doomed to incarceration for life. Neither
+the Queen nor the Prince were injured, and both showed the utmost
+self-possession.</p>
+
+<p>Perhaps the best proof of her bravery on the occasion of this outrage, as
+it was an unquestionable proof of her tenderness of heart, was the fact
+that within a minute or two after the shot of Oxford had been fired, she
+had the horses&#8217; heads turned towards her mother&#8217;s house, that her mother
+should see her sound and uninjured, ere an exaggerated or indiscreetly
+communicated report of the occurrence could reach her. Immediately after,
+she drove to Hyde Park, whither she had been proceeding before the outrage
+occurred, to take her usual drive before dinner. An immense concourse of
+persons of all ranks and both sexes had assembled, and the enthusiasm of
+her reception almost overpowered her. Prince Albert&#8217;s face, alternately
+pale and flushed, betrayed the strength of his emotions. They returned to
+Buckingham Palace attended by a most magnificent escort of the rank and
+beauty of London, on horseback and in carriages. A great crowd of a
+humbler sort was at the Palace gates to greet her, and it was said that
+she did not lose her composure<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_114" id="Page_114">[Pg 114]</a></span> until a flood of tears relieved her
+pent-up excitement in her own chamber. &#8220;God save the Queen&#8221; was demanded
+at all the theatres in the evening, and in the immediately succeeding days
+the Queen received, seated on her throne, loyal and congratulatory
+addresses from the Peers in their robes, and wearing all their
+decorations; from the Commons, from the City Corporation, and many other
+public bodies.</p>
+
+<p>Oxford was incarcerated in Bethlehem Hospital, one of the great
+metropolitan lunatic asylums, in which he remained many years, and of
+which he was made one of the chief &#8220;sights&#8221; by its visitors. Perhaps it
+was this circumstance that induced the authorities to order his removal to
+Broadmoor, the state prison in which persons charged with felonious
+crimes, whose lunacy has been established, have within recent years been
+confined. There he remained until the commencement of the winter months of
+1867. During all the weary period which intervened between the
+perpetration of his offence and that date his conduct was exemplary, and
+no evidence of mental aberration appeared. At various times appeals were
+made in his behalf by influential persons who had the opportunity of
+watching his demeanour and judging his character. His own representation
+from first to last ever was that the pistol which he fired was not loaded.
+He attributed the act which so nearly cost him his life and which wasted
+the best years of his existence, to inordinate vanity, fostered by a
+variety of trivial circumstances in his domestic life, on which it is not
+necessary to dwell, and which led to a senseless desire&mdash;similar to that
+which has perpetuated the name of Erostratus, the incendiary who fired the
+Temple of Diana at Ephesus&mdash;to<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_115" id="Page_115">[Pg 115]</a></span> gain notoriety by whatever means. To a
+certain extent he educated himself during his confinement, and became a
+tolerable linguist. He also taught himself that branch of the
+house-painter&#8217;s trade termed &#8220;graining,&#8221; sufficiently well to enable him
+to earn a decent livelihood. At last, late in 1867, he received a free
+pardon and release, subject only to the very proper provision that he
+should expatriate himself and never return to British shores. The same
+mania, or silly senselessness, might break out again, and it is manifestly
+right that the person of the Sovereign should be protected from the vanity
+of a man who, at however distant a period, could commit the cowardly
+outrage of which he was the author.</p>
+
+<p>When, a year or two later, the Queen was again providentially saved from
+similar felonious attempts, their character being of the same nature as
+that of Oxford&#8217;s, a strong feeling animated the general public mind that
+some special deterrent should be devised to prevent or reduce the
+likelihood of such maniacal or quasi-maniacal deeds. An Act of Parliament
+was accordingly passed, ere the close of the Session of 1843, by which
+severe flogging was imposed as part punishment in all such cases. It had
+the desired effect. From the period of its enactment until now, attempts
+to take the Queen&#8217;s life, and minor assaults upon her person, have been
+almost entirely unknown.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">BIRTH OF THE PRINCESS ROYAL.</div>
+
+<p>On the afternoon of the 21st of November, the country was gladdened by the
+birth of the Queen&#8217;s first-born, the Princess Royal, now Crown Princess of
+Prussia. The event occurred considerably before the period anticipated by
+the Queen&#8217;s medical and other attendants, and preparations had to be made
+in a hurry.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_116" id="Page_116">[Pg 116]</a></span> Nevertheless, the Queen soon regained her accustomed health,
+and so rapidly that we find it recorded that on the day before that
+appointed for the christening, she and a lady of the Court, exercising
+their strength and preserving their presence of mind, rescued the Prince
+from a most perilous if not fatal position. He had been skating,
+accompanied only by the Queen and one Lady-in-waiting, and had fallen
+through the ice in such a position that he could not possibly have
+extricated himself.</p>
+
+<p>Two days after the Princess was born, Mr. Selwyn, a gentleman with whom
+Prince Albert was reading English law and constitutional history, came to
+give his pupil his accustomed lesson. The Prince said to him, &#8220;I fear I
+cannot read any law to-day, there are so many constantly coming to
+congratulate; but you will like to see the little Princess.&#8221; He took his
+tutor into the nursery, as he found that the child was asleep. Taking her
+hand, he said, &#8220;The next time we read, it must be on the rights and duties
+of a Princess Royal.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>In 1841 Lord Melbourne was no longer Prime Minister. Sir Robert Peel, who
+had gained the largest Parliamentary majority which had been known for
+many years, reigned in his stead. The Queen made no difficulty about the
+Ladies of the Household now. Her tastes and feelings were consulted with
+great delicacy and consideration by the Premier, and the selection of the
+Duchess of Buccleuch in the first instance as Mistress of the Robes, which
+post may be termed the female Premiership of the Household, was especially
+gratifying to Her Majesty. But her heart was, nevertheless, loth to part
+with the constant female companions of the first four<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_117" id="Page_117">[Pg 117]</a></span> years of her reign.
+Thursday, September the 2nd, was the last evening she spent with them. At
+the dinner-table she could scarcely trust herself to speak, and she is
+reported to have shed bitter tears when she retired with her ladies.
+Everybody pitied the young Sovereign, and saw and felt the hardship
+involved. But it was an inevitable accompaniment of her high position.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">BIRTH OF THE PRINCE OF WALES.</div>
+
+<p>The heir to the throne adorned by Queen Victoria was born in the midst of
+one of the very darkest periods of English history. In 1841 the condition
+of the people had been declining from the beginning of the year.
+Operatives were on half time&mdash;at last they had no work at all&mdash;and the few
+who had had the means or the will to be provident, were living on their
+savings. Public meetings were being held to consider what was to be done,
+and public subscriptions were opened. Then the idle hands commenced to
+meet in large numbers, with a sullen look of despair, waiting for death or
+alms&mdash;a comparatively small number being employed at the expense of
+municipal and other recognised bodies, in road making or road mending.
+Crime, which follows pauperism as surely and almost as rapidly as the
+obscene vulture pounces upon the carrion which is not yet cold, was rife;
+murders came in multitudes, poisonings by wholesale; murders by trades
+unionists, murders by thieves. It was when this dark cloud lowered over
+England&mdash;a cloud never completely dispelled until the rise of the great
+and glorious Free Trade sun, five years later&mdash;that the Prince of Wales
+first breathed. A <i>London Gazette</i> extraordinary, which appeared on
+Tuesday evening, November the 9th, ran as follows:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+<p class="right"><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_118" id="Page_118">[Pg 118]</a></span>Buckingham Palace, Nov. 9th.</p>
+
+<p>This morning, at twelve minutes before eleven o&#8217;clock, the Queen was
+happily delivered of a Prince, His Royal Highness Prince Albert, Her
+Royal Highness the Duchess of Kent, several Lords of Her Majesty&#8217;s
+Most Honourable Privy Council, and the Ladies of Her Majesty&#8217;s
+Bedchamber, being present.</p>
+
+<p>This great and important news was immediately made known to the town
+by the firing of the Tower and Park guns; and the Privy Council being
+assembled as soon as possible thereupon, at the Council Chamber,
+Whitehall, it was ordered that a Form of Thanksgiving be prepared by
+His Grace the Archbishop of Canterbury, to be used in all churches and
+chapels throughout England and Wales and the town of
+Berwick-upon-Tweed, on Sunday, the 14th of November, or the Sunday
+after the respective ministers shall receive the same.</p>
+
+
+<p>Her Majesty and the infant Prince are, God be praised, both doing
+well.</p></div>
+
+<p>The joy of the nation at the succession to the crown in the progeny of the
+Queen and Prince Albert being thus secured, was excessive. Upon the
+announcement of the happy accouchement, the nobility and gentry crowded to
+the Palace to tender their dutiful inquiries as to the Sovereign&#8217;s
+convalescence. Amongst others, came the Lord Mayor and civic dignitaries
+in great state. They felt peculiarly proud that the Prince should have
+been born on Lord Mayor&#8217;s day; in fact, just at the very moment when the
+time-honoured procession was starting from the City for Westminster. In
+memory of the happy coincidence, the Lord Mayor of the year, Mr. Pirie,
+was created Sir John Pirie, Baronet. On the 4th of December, the Queen
+created her son by Letters Patent, Prince of Wales and Earl of
+Chester:&mdash;&#8220;And him, our said and most dear son, the Prince of the United
+Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, as has been accustomed, we do
+ennoble and invest with the said Principality and Earldom, by girding him
+with a sword,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_119" id="Page_119">[Pg 119]</a></span> by putting a coronet on his head, and a gold ring on his
+finger, and also by delivering a gold rod into his hand, that he may
+preside there, and direct and defend those parts.&#8221; By the fact of his
+birth as Heir-Apparent, the Prince indefeasibly inherited, without the
+necessity of patent or creation, these dignities&mdash;the titles of Duke of
+Saxony, by right of his father; and, by right of his mother, Duke of
+Cornwall, Duke of Rothsay, Earl of Carrick, Baron of Renfrew, Lord of the
+Isles, and Great Steward of Scotland.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">AN EMBASSY FROM FRANCE.</div>
+
+<p>In the early spring of 1840, the distinguished French statesman, M.
+Guizot, came over to England, being sent hither by the French Premier,
+Marshal Soult, on a special mission with reference to those complications
+in the East, which culminated the following year in that war between the
+Sultan Mahmoud and his vassal Mehemet Ali, in which British tars under
+Stopford and &#8220;Charley Napier&#8221; played so conspicuous a part. His pacific
+mission was a failure, and from its failure dates, first the loosening,
+and then the severance, of the close relations which subsisted for eleven
+years after 1830 between the Courts of St. James&#8217;s and the Tuileries.</p>
+
+<p>King Louis Philippe had conveyed to M. Guizot his desire that he should
+take the first opportunity of recalling to the Queen the intimacy which he
+had maintained with her father, the Duke of Kent; and Guizot resolved to
+remind Her Majesty of the circumstance when he was received by her on
+presenting his letters of credence. He prudently, however, asked Lord
+Palmerston, on whom, as Foreign Secretary, devolved the duty of presenting
+him, whether such a communication would be agreeable. Lord Palmerston
+instantly<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_120" id="Page_120">[Pg 120]</a></span> replied in the negative. He stated that the reception would be
+a purely official formality, and gave him to understand that the Queen
+would much prefer not having to reply to any speech. He therefore
+determined to abstain from making one. On the last day of February, he
+received a note at ten minutes past one from Lord Palmerston, stating that
+the Queen would be glad to receive him that day at one o&#8217;clock. Guizot
+immediately sent to Palmerston &#8220;to explain the delay, and his own
+innocence.&#8221; He then dressed with all speed, and reached Buckingham Palace
+a little before two. Precisely at the moment of his arrival, Lord
+Palmerston&#8217;s carriage also drove up. He told Guizot that the Queen&#8217;s
+orders had been forwarded to him (Palmerston) too late. Luckily, the Queen
+had other audiences to give, which occupied her fully until the appearance
+of the two astute and rival diplomats. But another difficulty arose. There
+was no Master of Ceremonies at hand to introduce him. Sir Robert Chester,
+who held that post, had received his summons, as tardily as that which had
+been sent to Lord Palmerston. That gentleman had not hastened his
+movements so rapidly as the active Frenchman. Although a breach of form,
+Lord Palmerston, therefore, undertook and performed the office of Sir
+Robert. The Queen received Guizot &#8220;with a gracious manner at once youthful
+and serious.&#8221; He remarked that the dignity of her manner caused one to
+forget the smallness of her stature. On entering, he said, &#8220;I trust,
+Madam, that your Majesty is aware of my excuse, for of myself [that is, if
+the blame of unpunctuality rested with me] I should be inexcusable.&#8221; She
+smiled in return, as if little surprised at, and quite used to, the want
+of punctuality. After all,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_121" id="Page_121">[Pg 121]</a></span> in spite of Lord Palmerston&#8217;s instructions to
+him, the Queen did grant him, in the strict and literal sense of the term,
+an audience. Though short, it was long enough to enable the Queen to chat
+with him, and inquire about his Sovereign, his consort, and their family.
+The Queen, of course, was warmly interested about the Orleans family, for
+one of the daughters of its head was the second wife of her uncle, King
+Leopold, and, therefore, her matrimonial aunt. So that Guizot <i>did</i> find
+and embrace the opportunity of reminding the Queen of the intimacy between
+his royal master and her father.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">M. GUIZOT AT BUCKINGHAM PALACE.</div>
+
+<p>As he was retiring, Lord Palmerston, who remained a moment or two with the
+Queen, after she had bid M. Guizot adieu, said hastily to him, &#8220;There is
+something more; I am going to introduce you to Prince Albert and the
+Duchess of Kent; you could not otherwise be presented to them, except at
+the next lev&eacute;e, on the 6th of March, but it is necessary, on the contrary,
+that on that day you should be already old friends.&#8221; These further
+presentations were, accordingly, made; Guizot being struck with the
+political intelligence which the conversation of the Prince, in spite of
+his constitutional reserve, displayed. Guizot left the palace greatly
+pleased with his reception. As he passed through the hall, he saw the
+Master of Ceremonies in hot haste descending from his carriage, and
+&#8220;anxious to apologise to him, with temper somewhat ruffled, for his
+involuntary uselessness.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>An invitation to dinner at Buckingham Palace for five days after quickly
+reached him at his residence, Hertford House. He remarked on the want of
+animation and interest in the conversation, whether at the dinner-table or
+in the drawing-room. Politics of any kind, home or<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_122" id="Page_122">[Pg 122]</a></span> foreign, were,
+apparently to his surprise, strictly avoided. When the gentlemen joined
+the ladies, which, throughout the Queen&#8217;s reign, has been at a very short
+interval after the departure of the latter from the dining-room, they all
+sat on chairs round a circular table set before the Queen, who occupied a
+sofa. Two or three of her ladies engaged themselves in fancy work; Prince
+Albert challenged some one to a game at chess. Lady Palmerston and M.
+Guizot, &#8220;with some effort,&#8221; carried on a flagging dialogue. The
+conversation being thus flat, M. Guizot took to looking at the pictures on
+the walls, of which there were but three, hung over the different doors of
+the apartment. He was very much astonished at the extraordinary contrasts
+in the subjects of these pictures. They certainly were most incongruous.
+One was F&eacute;n&eacute;lon, the second the Czar Peter, and the third Anne Hyde, the
+discarded wife of James II. He asked one of his fellow-guests whether the
+combination was intentional or an accident? But he could get no
+satisfaction on the subject. No one had remarked the combination, and no
+one could tell the reason for it.</p>
+
+<p>At the lev&eacute;e which he attended the day following, he was still more
+astounded and perplexed. He thought its presentations and other
+paraphernalia &#8220;a long and monotonous ceremony.&#8221; Yet it inspired this keen
+and philosophic student of men and manners with &#8220;real interest.&#8221; We shall
+allow M. Guizot, ere we finally leave his companionship, to express his
+views on this peculiarly English institution in his own words:&mdash;&#8220;I
+regarded with excited esteem the profound respect of that vast
+assembly&mdash;courtiers, citizens, lawyers, churchmen, officers, military and
+naval, passing before the Queen, the greater portion<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_123" id="Page_123">[Pg 123]</a></span> bending the knee to
+kiss her hand, all perfectly solemn, sincere, and awkward. The sincerity
+and seriousness were both needed to prevent those antiquated habits, wigs,
+and bags, those costumes which no one in England now wears except on such
+occasions, from appearing somewhat ridiculous. But I am little sensible to
+the outward appearance of absurdity when the substance partakes not of
+that character.&#8221;</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">FANCY BALL AT COURT.</div>
+
+<p>As a companion picture of the Queen at home at this epoch of her reign,
+for the lineaments of which we have acknowledged our indebtedness to M.
+Guizot, we present these recollections of the Queen in her young married
+days, which we condense from a gossiping work by Lord William Lennox. The
+Queen had a splendid new ballroom built in Buckingham Palace, and nothing
+could exceed the brilliancy of the entertainments which she gave there. To
+one of these, in 1842, Lord Lennox received an invitation. It was a <i>bal
+costum&eacute;</i>, the first, he believed, which had ever been given in England by
+a Prince of the House of Brunswick. A second ball, in which, unlike the
+former, the dresses were confined to the reigns of George II. and III.,
+was given in the same year. All had to appear in powder&mdash;a somewhat trying
+ordeal to such ladies and gentlemen as did not possess fine features.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">A STATE BANQUET AT WINDSOR.</div>
+
+<p>Somewhat about the same time, Lord Lennox dined at Windsor Castle, at the
+great banquet given on the Ascot Cup day. A magnificent d&eacute;jeuner had been
+served for luncheon on the course in Tippoo Sahib&#8217;s tent. At the dinner in
+the evening, the first thing which struck one who was a guest for the
+first time on such an occasion, was the exact punctuality of the Queen
+and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_124" id="Page_124">[Pg 124]</a></span> Prince. Although necessarily fatigued with the bustle and excitement
+of the day, they were in the drawing-room some minutes before the dinner
+was announced, and after a courteous greeting to all the guests, proceeded
+at once to dinner. Another observable peculiarity was that the Prince left
+the table twenty minutes after the ladies. The banqueting-room on this
+great occasion was St. George&#8217;s Hall, splendid with its ceiling emblazoned
+with the arms of the Knights of the Garter from the institution of the
+order, and the portraits of our kings from James I. to George IV. At each
+end of the hall, buffets, seventeen feet high and forty broad, were set.
+They were of rich fretted Gothic framework, covered with crimson cloth,
+and brilliant with massive gold plate. Immediately opposite the Queen was
+set a pyramid of plate, its apex being the tiger&#8217;s head captured at
+Seringapatam, and comprising the &#8220;Iluma&#8221; of precious stones which Lord
+Wellesley, the Governor-General of India, presented to George IV. The
+table, which was laid for a hundred guests, extended the whole length of
+the hall. All down the centre, epergnes, vases, cups, and candelabra were
+ranged, the celebrated St. George&#8217;s candelabrum being opposite Her
+Majesty. The hall was splendidly illuminated, and two bands of the Guards
+discoursed sweet music from a balcony. The Yeomen of the Guard stood on
+duty at the entrance. The repast, which did ample justice to the merits of
+the Queen&#8217;s renowned <i>cuisini&eacute;r</i>, Francatelli, was entirely served in gold
+plate, and the attendance was so faultless that there was less bustle and
+confusion than usually attend a repast shared by a party of ten or a
+dozen. At a quarter to nine grace was said; and after the dessert and wine
+had been placed<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_125" id="Page_125">[Pg 125]</a></span> on the table, the Lord Steward rose and proposed, without
+remark, &#8220;The Queen.&#8221; The Queen simply, when the toast had been drunk,
+bowed her acknowledgments. After a brief pause, the health of Prince
+Albert was drunk standing, as the Queen&#8217;s had been, the band playing the
+&#8220;Coburg March.&#8221; At half-past nine the Queen rose, and, accompanied by the
+Duchess of Kent, was followed by all the ladies to the drawing-room. In
+about twenty minutes all the gentlemen followed. The Waterloo Chamber was
+thrown open, and its rich historical and pictorial treasures were keenly
+inspected by groups of the guests. Amongst others of its chief ornaments,
+attention was concentrated on the swords of the Pretenders James and
+Charles, Prince Rupert&#8217;s coat of mail, and the magnificent shield, by
+Cellini, presented by Francis I. to King Henry VIII., at the Field of the
+Cloth of Gold. But the great treat of the evening was the appearance of
+Madame Rachel, who, with two or three French actors, gave <i>morceaux</i> from
+her principal impersonations. The success of her performance was the more
+conspicuous that it was entirely unaided by scenery, dress, or other
+histrionic accompaniment. A little before twelve the Queen, after
+addressing with the utmost grace some words of courteous appreciation to
+the great <i>tragedienne</i>, and bowing to the assembled guests, retired,
+leaning on her husband&#8217;s arm.</p>
+
+
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p><p>&nbsp;</p>
+<hr style="width: 50%;" />
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_126" id="Page_126">[Pg 126]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XV" id="CHAPTER_XV"></a>CHAPTER XV.</h2>
+<p class="title">THE QUEEN IN SCOTLAND.</p>
+
+<div class="note"><p class="hang">Christening of the Prince of Wales&mdash;Manufacturing Distress&mdash;Queen&#8217;s
+Efforts to alleviate it&mdash;Assesses Herself to the Income Tax&mdash;Resolves
+to Visit Scotland&mdash;Embarks at Woolwich&mdash;Beacon Fires in the Firth of
+Forth&mdash;Landing on Scottish Soil&mdash;A Disappointment&mdash;Formal Entry into
+Edinburgh&mdash;Richness of Historical and Ancestral Associations&mdash;The
+Queen on the Castle Rock&mdash;A Highland Welcome&mdash;Departure from Scotland.</p></div>
+
+
+<p>The Session of 1842 was opened by the Queen in person with unusual
+splendour, which was enhanced by the presence of the King of Prussia, who
+had come over to stand sponsor to the Prince of Wales. The christening was
+performed on the 25th of January, and was attended with all due
+magnificence, and succeeded by a splendid banquet. Mr. Raikes, in his
+amusing, valuable journal, thus records the event:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p><i>Tuesday, 25th.</i>&mdash;The day of the Royal christening at Windsor. The
+Prince of Wales is named Albert Edward. All who have been there say
+that the scene was very magnificent, and the display of plate at the
+banquet superb. After the ceremony a silver-embossed vessel containing
+a whole hogshead of mulled claret was introduced, and served in
+bucketfuls to the company, who drank the young Prince&#8217;s health. Very
+few ladies were invited.</p></div>
+
+<div class="sidenote">NATIONAL DISTRESS AND ROYAL SYMPATHY.</div>
+
+<p>The Queen&#8217;s speech of this year noticed with deep regret the continued
+distress in the manufacturing districts of the country, and bore testimony
+to the exemplary patience and fortitude with which it had been borne.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_127" id="Page_127">[Pg 127]</a></span>
+Many people began once more to murmur at the continued flow of gaiety at
+Windsor where the young parents still seemed to experience the first
+thrills of transport at the birth of a son and heir. Some of the lowest
+class of seditious newspapers began the practice of printing in parallel
+columns the description of the fancy dresses at the Queen&#8217;s balls (the
+purchase and preparation of which must certainly have tended to alleviate
+the distress), &amp;c., and reports from the pauperised districts, records of
+deaths from starvation, and the like. Among the unthinking classes such
+disloyal practices produced a very deep feeling of dissatisfaction. In the
+course of the year two attempts were reported as having been made upon the
+Queen&#8217;s life: one, however, being merely the freak of an ill-natured boy,
+but the other was of a much more serious description, and cost its author
+transportation for life. Sir Robert Peel felt it his duty to discharge the
+part of a faithful Minister, and to counsel his Royal mistress to lessen
+the gaieties of the Court, even if it were only in deference to the
+prejudices of the starving and maddened poor. He neither roused nor
+augmented her fears, but gave her the counsel which the time required. The
+Queen at once acted, and without taking offence, upon the Minister&#8217;s
+advice. At the christening of the Prince of Wales all the ladies of the
+Court appeared in Paisley shawls, English lace, and other articles of home
+manufacture. And when the christening was over a marked sobriety settled
+down over the Court, and continued during all the summer of 1842. Even the
+most querulous speedily granted that they had no reason to complain.</p>
+
+<p>This change in the sentiments of the public, especially its lower and more
+distressed portions, was promoted and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_128" id="Page_128">[Pg 128]</a></span> accelerated by an act, equally
+tasteful and touching, of Her Majesty during this year. In the spring of
+1842, Sir Robert Peel, now thoroughly warm in his seat as Premier,
+commanding a large working majority, and not yet having awakened the
+hostility of the decidedly Protectionist section of his followers,
+inaugurated that splendid series of bravely devised measures in the
+direction of Free Trade, of which the great Anti-Corn Law Act of four
+years later was, so far as he was concerned, the culmination. In 1842,
+Peel proposed and carried a Budget which considerably lessened the burden
+of Customs imposts, but the chief merit and recommendation of which
+consisted in the fact that it relieved the nation of the incubus of a host
+of very galling excise duties on such articles of common use as glass,
+leather, bricks, and soap. These beneficial remissions of taxation could
+not have been effected by him&mdash;for they entailed a heavy cost upon the
+revenue, already inadequate to meet the annual expenditure&mdash;but for the
+re-imposition of an Income Tax, a means of raising revenue which had been
+long disused, to the extent of sevenpence in the pound on all incomes
+above &pound;150 of annual value. This, of course, did not affect the allowance
+made to the Sovereign. Nevertheless, Her Majesty evinced her sympathy at
+once with the prevailing distress and with the daring fiscal expedient of
+the Premier, by coming forward unsolicited to offer to receive an
+abatement of her income, based upon the precise scale of that imposed by
+Parliament upon her subjects.</p>
+
+<p>Up to the Queen&#8217;s reign, the members of the House of Brunswick had never
+been peripatetic in their tendencies. The first two Georges had made
+frequent visits to their<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_129" id="Page_129">[Pg 129]</a></span> patrimonial German electorate, but they evinced
+no desire to visit England beyond the immediate environs of London. George
+III. never passed out of England; George IV. visited Ireland and Scotland
+each on one occasion; but with these exceptions, hardly any British
+highways were traversed by his wheels during his reign, whether as
+Sovereign Regent or Regnant, except the great roads connecting his capital
+with Windsor, Brighton, and Newmarket. William IV. was too old when he
+came to the throne to make it at all probable that he would evince any
+taste to visit any of the outlying portions of his dominions; nor did he
+do so. Queen Victoria, as we have copiously seen in earlier chapters, was
+from her very infancy habituated to moving about from place to place, and
+all along she has proved herself as proud as Queen Elizabeth herself of
+mingling with and showing herself to her people.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">FIRST VISIT TO SCOTLAND.</div>
+
+<p>For some time the Queen was understood to have contemplated a journey to
+the land of those Stuart ancestors by virtue of whose Tudor blood they,
+and the Brunswick line through them, and she through it, inherited the
+British crown. In the autumn of this year all seemed propitious for the
+journey, and it was undertaken accordingly by herself and her young
+husband. Their first destination was the Scottish capital, and as the
+railway system connecting the southern and northern extremities of the
+island was yet far from complete, the journey was made by water from the
+Thames to the Forth, the port of embarkation being Woolwich, and of
+debarkation, Granton, a minor harbour in the immediate neighbourhood of
+Edinburgh.</p>
+
+<p>The expected visit was awaited and prepared for in<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_130" id="Page_130">[Pg 130]</a></span> the North with the
+utmost eagerness of expectancy. Half Scotland seemed to have emptied
+itself into the metropolis to do her honour. In their preparations,
+burgher vied with noble, tartan-clad Highlanders with Lowlanders in their
+more sombre blue bonnets and hodden grey. On the 29th of August, the Queen
+left Windsor, and proceeded to Woolwich, where she embarked amid the
+acclamations of her metropolitan and Kentish subjects at an early hour of
+the same day. In a Royal yacht, towed by a steam ship of war, the voyage
+was safely effected in the fine weather and on the placid wave of early
+autumn. In due time the Royal squadron arrived off Dunbar, which, with the
+Bass Rock and Tantallon Castle, form together a fine <i>coup-d&#8217;&oelig;il</i> of
+romantic coast scenery and middle age antiquity, at the mouth of the Firth
+of Forth. Here it was met by large steamers filled by welcomers from
+Edinburgh and its neighbourhood, who greeted their illustrious visitors
+with loud huzzahs, and the strains of that National Anthem, which, though
+of English birth, was chaunted right lustily by Scottish lungs and lips.
+It was observed that Her Majesty, who came on board and acknowledged the
+vivas of her subjects, had paid the Scots the compliment of enveloping
+herself in a Paisley shawl; and when, a day or two later, she made her
+formal entry past the church sanctified by the preaching of John Knox, to
+the Castle, in a narrow chamber of which her unfortunate ancestor Queen
+Mary bore her son King James, she wore, with even more conspicuously
+appropriate taste, a shawl of Stuart tartan.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">LANDING ON SCOTTISH SOIL.</div>
+
+<p>As she passed up the Firth, under cover of the gathering night, every peak
+on either side of the estuary, from<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_131" id="Page_131">[Pg 131]</a></span> St. Abb&#8217;s Head, which she had left
+behind, away westwards to the Pentlands, the Lomonds, and the Ochils, was
+surmounted by a blazing beacon&mdash;a splendid sight, and stimulative by
+contrast to the imaginations of those who recollected to what different
+uses beacon-fires on Scottish hills and Scottish Border Keeps had been put
+in earlier days of the international relations of England and Scotland.
+The fiery welcome was returned from the Royal yacht, by the letting off of
+rockets, and the burning of blue lights.</p>
+
+<p>At last the squadron came in sight in the roads before Leith, the anchor
+being let down&mdash;&#8220;a welcome sound,&#8221; wrote the Queen&mdash;at a quarter to one
+o&#8217;clock on the morning of Thursday, September the 1st. Every one of the
+heights on or under the domination of which Edinburgh stands, had been
+crowded all the previous day with tens of thousands of spectators. All at
+once two guns from the castle, and a signal flag hoisted from the summit
+of Nelson&#8217;s column, some 400 feet above the level of the sea, announced
+the arrival. The Queen slept and rested herself after the fatigues of her
+voyage on board the Royal yacht; and she took her good but inalert
+subjects by surprise, by effecting her landing at an hour so early on the
+succeeding morning, that many of them, wearied by their recent vigils, had
+not yet left their couches, and even the corporate dignitaries were
+subject to the mortification of not having the honour to receive and
+welcome their Queen as her foot first touched Scottish soil. In their
+absence, that pleasurable duty was discharged by Sir Robert Peel, and the
+Duke of Buccleuch, whose guest she was about to be at his palace of
+Dalkeith, and who had ridden immediately after<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_132" id="Page_132">[Pg 132]</a></span> her carriage, as
+Captain-General of her body-guard of Scottish Archers, on the day on which
+she was crowned queen at Westminster. Sir Robert Peel told the Queen that
+the people were all in the highest glee and good humour, though a little
+disappointed at the non-arrival of the squadron the day before, as had
+been expected.</p>
+
+<p>With the extraordinarily auspicious fatality which has made &#8220;Queen&#8217;s
+weather&#8221; so trite and proverbial an expression, the sun splendidly burst
+forth at the moment of her landing, and continued to shine throughout her
+progress through a portion of the New Town of Edinburgh; its bright
+freestone streets and terraces sparkling in the clear, sunlit air&mdash;past
+her ancient Palace of Holyrood, and so through fertile Lothian to the
+mansion of the princely head of the old Border House of the Scotts. When
+the customary ensign was hauled down from the top of the rugged Castle
+Rock, and the Royal Standard was hoisted in its place, the streets at once
+filled, and the loyal shouts of the crowds, who hastily assembled in no
+small force, sufficiently atoned for the absence of those whom the
+somewhat unexpected arrival balked for this one day of the delight of
+expressing their devotion.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">FIRST IMPRESSIONS OF SCOTLAND.</div>
+
+<p>The impression which her first view of Edinburgh made upon the Queen was
+very striking and most favourable. She thought it &#8220;beautiful, totally
+unlike anything else she had seen.&#8221; Even Prince Albert, a great traveller
+while yet in his teens, and who had visited very many great and renowned
+cities, also said it was unlike anything which he had witnessed. The
+massive stone buildings, with not a solitary brick used in their
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_133" id="Page_133">[Pg 133]</a></span>construction; the great dorsal fin of the High Street; the magnificent
+situation of the Castle; the Calton Hill, guarded by medi&aelig;val battlements
+and crowned by Choragic temples, with the noble back-ground of Arthur&#8217;s
+Seat overtopping the whole, together impressed the youthful tourists as
+&#8220;forming altogether a splendid spectacle.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>As the carriages drove through the city, the Earl of Wemyss, who marched
+by the Queen&#8217;s side in his green uniform of a Scottish Archer of the
+Guard, pointed out to Her Majesty the varied objects of interest on the
+line of route through the eastern portions of the city to the Duke of
+Buccleuch&#8217;s palace of Dalkeith. When they got into the open country, she
+was further astonished to find that not only all the cottages, but even
+the fences dividing field from field, were also built of stone. The
+peasants by the wayside were equally objects of curiosity and interest, as
+they had &#8220;quite a different character from England and the English.&#8221; The
+close caps&mdash;<i>Scottice</i>, &#8220;mutches&#8221;&mdash;of the old women, and the long, flowing
+hair, frequently red, of the handsome girls and children, were equal
+novelties to the royal &#8220;Southrons.&#8221; The Prince was struck with the
+resemblance of the country people to Germans. Other Scottish specialties
+appeared at the breakfast-table at Dalkeith, in the form of oatmeal
+porridge and &#8220;Finnan Haddies&#8221;&mdash;the first of which, at least, found
+immediate favour with Her Majesty.</p>
+
+<p>The grand ceremonial of entering the ancient city in state was reserved
+for the Saturday after the arrival; the interval having been devoted by
+the royal party to quiet and repose in the magnificent domain of
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_134" id="Page_134">[Pg 134]</a></span>Buccleuch, and drives to objects of interest in its neighbourhood. The
+line of the cavalcade, on this red-letter day, was up the steep ascent of
+the Canongate, High Street, and Lawnmarket, from the Palace of Holyrood
+(which the Queen rightly pronounced &#8220;a royal-looking old place&#8221;) to the
+Castle which the Black Douglas scaled, where George Buchanan&#8217;s pedantic
+Stuart pupil was born, and from the parapets of which various and shifting
+prospects are to be descried, which may be equalled, but cannot be
+surpassed, in any portion of Her Majesty&#8217;s dominions.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">THE QUEEN IN EDINBURGH CASTLE.</div>
+
+<p>It was indeed historic ground along which the Queen passed this day. Every
+one of the stupendous houses of eight, ten, or even more stories, which
+formed a mighty avenue of stone on either side of the ancient causeway
+along which the steeds which drew her carriage slowly and deliberately
+proceeded, had some tale of long gone days to tell, many of them being
+most intimately associated with the fortunes of her Stuart ancestors. On
+her way she passed the site of that tower in which Darnley, her ancestor,
+was blown into eternity. Ere she left her Palace of Holyrood and the
+adjacent ruins of the abbey which was erected by that Scottish king who
+built and endowed so many abbeys that his subjects piteously exclaimed
+that he was a &#8220;saur saunt for the Croon,&#8221; she may have seen the
+blood-stains of Rizzio, and the somewhat mythical portraits of the Kings
+of the Houses of Kenneth, Bruce, and the Stuarts. On one side of her was
+the old mansion of the Regent Moray, on the other the spot where, for the
+first and only time, the boy Francis Jeffrey set eyes upon Robert Burns.
+Here was the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_135" id="Page_135">[Pg 135]</a></span> ancient oaken hall where the Scottish Parliament sate, there
+the office of that Scottish journal of which Daniel Defoe, the staunch and
+loyal friend of William III., was the first editor. Here was the house in
+which John Knox lived and died, there the church in which he preached with
+such fervour for that Protestant faith, with the establishment of which in
+Europe both lines of her ancestors were so intimately identified. And when
+she arrived on the esplanade of the Castle itself, she could look across
+the Forth on the one side to the minor mountain which casts its morning
+shadow into Loch Leven, from her captivity on an islet of which Scottish
+Catholic gentlemen so gallantly rescued her Stuart ancestress; while
+immediately beneath her lay the Grassmarket&mdash;at once the Tower and the
+Smithfield of Scotland&mdash;where Montrose and Argyll expiated respectively
+their loyalty to the Stuart race, and to freedom of soul and speech.</p>
+
+<p>As the cort&egrave;ge passed up the streets along which Prince Charlie had passed
+when he held court at Holyrood just ninety-seven years before, as she
+received at the site of the old Tolbooth the keys of the city from the
+Lord Provost, bending the knee beside his fellow-burghers, clad in the old
+costumes of the Trades, and close beside a guard of honour of Highlanders
+headed by the present Duke of Argyll; or as she stood surveying from the
+topmost battery of the citadel her fair ancestral domains of Lothian and
+Fife, and the distant mountains which tower o&#8217;er Loch Lomond and the
+Trossachs, some such proud and pathetic recollections as these must have
+occupied and touched the heart of the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_136" id="Page_136">[Pg 136]</a></span> youngest and the mightiest monarch
+in Europe. Their closer acquaintance with Edinburgh increased the mingled
+amazement and delight of the Queen and Prince. Prince Albert pronounced
+the view of it from the margin of the Firth of Forth as &#8220;fairy-like,&#8221;
+&#8220;what you would imagine as a thing to dream of, or to see in a picture.&#8221;
+He said he felt sure the Acropolis could not be finer, and the Queen at
+once recognised the appropriateness of the idealised metamorphosis of
+&#8220;Auld Reekie&#8221; (<i>Anglice</i>, &#8220;Old Smoky&#8221;) into &#8220;the Modern Athens.&#8221; The Leith
+ticket-porters, mounted on flower-decked horses, with broad,
+ribbon-decorated Kilmarnock bonnets, and the pretty Newhaven fishwives,
+with their clear, peachy complexions and Danish costumes, were objects of
+peculiar interest.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">THE QUEEN IN THE HIGHLANDS.</div>
+
+<p>Space fails us to enter into details of the further incidents of this, the
+Queen&#8217;s first visit to her Scottish dominion. Enough to say that she
+received in the Highlands, where she visited in succession not a few of
+her oldest nobles of Gaelic and Norman descent, receptions as rapturous as
+that which she experienced in the Modern Athens. The welcome, if it could
+not be more hearty, was at least attended with more picturesque
+accessories in the romantic region where the dialect and the &#8220;garb of Old
+Gael&#8221; still to a large extent prevail. At Dupplin Castle, at Scone Palace,
+where her ancestors were crowned, at Blair Athole, at Taymouth, and at
+Drummond Castle, she was entertained with equal splendour, and with the
+true and special elements of &#8220;Highland Welcome.&#8221; She may be almost said to
+have passed through a continuous succession of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_137" id="Page_137">[Pg 137]</a></span> triumphal arches. Every
+chieftain brought out all his available clansmen, all in kilts, claymores,
+and Glengarry bonnets, to act as guards of honour. Balls, in which the
+national dances, performed by the best born cadets of the noble houses of
+whom she was the guest, constituted the chief feature, alternated with
+deer-stalking, for the especial behoof of the Prince; processions of boats
+on the lake through which rolls the Tay, a river only less rapid than the
+Spey; and visits to places of historic interest or romantic beauty.</p>
+
+<p>The Queen was especially charmed with the beautiful situation of the
+ancient city of Perth, and the enthusiastic reception which the multitudes
+there assembled gave to her. Prince Albert, too, was delighted, and
+likened the appearance of the place to Basle. At Scone Palace, which is
+within two miles of Perth, a very natural object of peculiar interest was
+the mound on which all the Scottish kings had been crowned. At Dunkeld the
+Highlands were fairly entered; and here the Royal party were met and
+escorted by a guard of Athole Highlanders, armed with halberts, and headed
+by a piper. One of them danced the sword dance, with which the travellers
+were greatly amused, and others of them figured in a reel.</p>
+
+<p>The longest sojourn made in the Highlands was at Taymouth, the seat of the
+Marquis of Breadalbane. The scenery here again revived recollections of
+Switzerland in the memory of Prince Albert, who was particularly prone, in
+this and subsequent visits to the North, to trace resemblances between its
+scenery and localities which he had visited in the tours of his bachelor
+days.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_138" id="Page_138">[Pg 138]</a></span> The reception at Taymouth was magnificent, and quite captivated the
+illustrious guests. The Queen wrote in her journal&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>The <i>coup d&#8217;&oelig;il</i> was indescribable. There were a number of Lord
+Breadalbane&#8217;s Highlanders, all in the Campbell tartan, drawn up in
+front of the house, with Lord Breadalbane himself in a Highland dress
+at their head; a few of Sir Niel Menzies&#8217; men (in the Menzies red and
+white tartan), a number of pipers playing, and a company of the 92nd
+Highlanders, also in kilts. The firing of the guns, the cheering of
+the great crowd, the picturesqueness of the dresses, the beauty of the
+surrounding country, with its rich back-ground of wooded hills,
+altogether formed one of the finest scenes imaginable. It seemed as if
+a great chieftain in olden feudal times was receiving his Sovereign.
+It was princely and romantic.</p></div>
+
+<p>Wherever the Queen rambled during her stay by the shores of Loch Tay, she
+was guarded by two Highlanders, and it recalled to her mind &#8220;olden times,
+to see them with their swords drawn.&#8221; Walking one day with the Duchess of
+Norfolk, the Queen and her noble companion met &#8220;a fat, good-humoured
+little woman.&#8221; She cut some flowers for the ladies, and the Duchess handed
+to her some money, saying, &#8220;From Her Majesty.&#8221; The poor woman was
+perfectly astounded, but, recovering her wits, came up to the Queen, and
+said na&iuml;vely that &#8220;her people were delighted to see the Queen in
+Scotland.&#8221; Wherever the royal visitors were, or went, the inevitable
+strains of the bagpipes were heard. They played before the Castle at
+frequent intervals throughout the day, from breakfast till dinner-time,
+and invariably when they went in or out of doors. When rowed in boats on
+the lake, two pipers sat in the bows and played; and the Queen, who had
+grown &#8220;quite fond&#8221; of the bagpipes,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_139" id="Page_139">[Pg 139]</a></span> was reminded of the lines of Scott,
+with whose poems she had, from an early age, possessed the most intimate
+familiarity:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p class="poem">&#8220;See the proud pipers in the bow,<br />
+And mark the gaudy streamers flow<br />
+From their loud chambers down, and sweep<br />
+The furrow&#8217;d bosom of the deep,<br />
+As, rushing through the lake amain,<br />
+They plied the ancient Highland strain.&#8221;</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">DEPARTURE FROM SCOTLAND.</div>
+
+<p>On the 13th of September the return journey from the Highlands by
+Stirling, the ancient Castle of which was visited, to Dalkeith Palace, had
+been completed. Two days later the Queen and Prince re-embarked at
+Granton, <i>en route</i> for Woolwich and Windsor.</p>
+
+<p>Although a by no means excessive quantity of time&mdash;but a fortnight&mdash;was
+consumed in the tour, some idea of the rapidity with which distances were
+traversed, and the extent of ground covered, may be gathered from the fact
+that no fewer than 656 post-horses were employed. The Queen touched the
+hearts of the Highlanders&mdash;among whom Jacobitism remained, not as an
+element of personal devotion to a fallen house, but not the less as a deep
+chord of pathos and poetry&mdash;by commanding a Scottish vocalist, at a
+concert given in her honour at Blair Athole, to sing two of the most
+beloved of Jacobite songs&mdash;&#8220;Cam&#8217; ye by Athole,&#8221; and &#8220;Wae&#8217;s me for Prince
+Charlie.&#8221; When she once more embarked at Granton on her homeward route,
+she left memories of pleasure and affection which far exceeded the
+intensely ardent excitement which had preceded and greeted her landing. On
+the last day which she spent in Scotland, the Queen<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_140" id="Page_140">[Pg 140]</a></span> wrote in her
+journal&mdash;&#8220;This is our last day in Scotland; it is really a delightful
+country, and I am very sorry to leave it.&#8221; And the day after, watching its
+vanishing coast&mdash;&#8220;As the fair shores of Scotland receded more and more
+from our view, we felt quite sad that this very pleasant and interesting
+tour was over; but we shall never forget it.&#8221;</p>
+
+
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p><p>&nbsp;</p>
+<hr style="width: 50%;" />
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_141" id="Page_141">[Pg 141]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XVI" id="CHAPTER_XVI"></a>CHAPTER XVI.</h2>
+<p class="title">WHAT ENGLAND OWES TO PRINCE ALBERT.</p>
+
+<div class="note"><p class="hang">The Prince&#8217;s Study of our Laws and Constitution&mdash;Two Misconceptions
+Outlived&mdash;His Versatility&mdash;First Speech an Anti-Slavery One&mdash;His
+Appreciation and Judicious Criticism of Art&mdash;Scientific Side of his
+Mind&mdash;As an Agriculturist.</p></div>
+
+
+<p>It will not be undesirable at this stage of our narrative to interpose a
+summary compendium of some indications of the manner in which Prince
+Albert, or the &#8220;Prince Consort,&#8221; as he was designated by Royal Letters
+Patent, after 1857, discharged the high, onerous, and important duties to
+which his position called him. If the conduct and career of a husband be
+an integral and large part of a woman&#8217;s life, it is tenfold more so in the
+case of a woman who is also a queen, and especially a queen-regnant in and
+by her own right. The large and enlarging breadth of mind which the Prince
+soon began to display; the abundant tenderness of heart, which found at
+once indication and exercise in the admirable and diverse modes in which
+he advanced all agencies of public utility and associated benevolence; the
+excellent mode in which, equally as a father and a husband, he evinced the
+warm glow of domestic virtue which animated his bosom, and the absolute
+and much-wanted scientific and artistic lessons which he taught more than
+any other man, during his life in England, to the somewhat uncouth people
+of whom he became a part&mdash;all these, and other elements<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_142" id="Page_142">[Pg 142]</a></span> of character and
+conduct, indirectly increased the growing esteem in which the Queen was
+held, on her own merits, by her people; for we might have had to look
+forward to a different national future, so far as a national future can be
+moulded in the sense of either making or marring, had the &#8220;father of our
+future kings&#8221; been other and lesser than what he was. Such a man as the
+Prince Consort must necessarily have wielded a very large and weighty
+influence upon the character of the royal lady whom he married. The
+history of her life, therefore, even if it were traced within narrower
+limits than those within whose compression our task must be discharged,
+would be insufficiently delineated without the introduction of such
+episodical but most relevant matter as that to which this chapter is
+briefly dedicated.</p>
+
+<p>Almost the first task which the Prince Consort undertook when he came
+amongst us was to set himself to an assiduous study of our laws and
+institutions. He secured the services of a most competent instructor in
+themes so important to one who stood so near the throne, in the person of
+the late Mr. William Selwyn, Q.C. Mr. Selwyn was a sound jurist, and under
+his guidance the Prince read such works as Blackstone, De Lolme, Hallam,
+Bentham, and Mill. He proved himself an apt student, for he had the
+capacity for study eminently developed; and, besides, his position was one
+of singular difficulty and delicacy. He stood so near to the throne,
+amongst a people, too, traditionally jealous of aliens, and especially of
+aliens in high places, that any utterance he might be called upon to make
+would be considered as almost, if not quite, emanating from the throne
+itself. Although a certain cabinet intrigue, and one rare expression of
+his own&mdash;not<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_143" id="Page_143">[Pg 143]</a></span> so much unguarded in itself, as wanting in explicitness, and
+capable of a certain misconstruction&mdash;did, on two several occasions,
+provoke in certain quarters something approaching to national disfavour,
+he soon outlived the misconception; and the universal sentiment of the
+people came round to the conviction that the Prince was faithful and loyal
+to the constitution to which he had sworn fidelity; nay more, that he had
+fairly caught, apprehended, and absorbed into his being the very genius
+and spirit of the English race.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">PRINCE ALBERT S FIRST SPEECH.</div>
+
+<p>The first speech the Prince made in England was at an anti-slavery
+meeting; the last at the opening of an international statistical congress.
+The former was delivered during the first summer of his married life. It
+is so brief, and it gives, as it were, so thoroughly the key-note of his
+character, that our readers will thank us for giving it entire:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>I have been induced to preside at the meeting of this society from a
+conviction of its paramount importance to the great interests of
+humanity and justice. I deeply regret that the benevolent and
+persevering exertions of England to abolish that atrocious traffic in
+human beings (at once the desolation of Africa and the blackest stain
+upon civilised Europe) have not as yet led to any satisfactory
+conclusion. But I sincerely trust that this great country will not
+relax in its efforts until it has finally, and for ever, put an end to
+a state of things so repugnant to the spirit of Christianity and the
+best feelings of our nature. Let us, therefore, trust that Providence
+will prosper our exertions in so holy a cause, and that (under the
+auspices of our Queen and her Government) we may, at no distant
+period, be rewarded by the accomplishment of the great and humane
+object for the promotion of which we have this day met.</p></div>
+
+<p>We have already remarked the wide range of Prince Albert&#8217;s endeavours,
+study, devotion, and consequent usefulness. He presided at dinners of the
+Literary Fund, and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_144" id="Page_144">[Pg 144]</a></span> of the Royal Academy; at the Trinity House most
+frequently, and at many agricultural meetings. Two of the best and most
+pregnant with good of his addresses, were delivered at the meetings of
+associations designed respectively for the better housing of labourers,
+and in behalf of the large and sorely tempted class of domestic servants.
+Now he presided at the Bicentenary of the Corporation of the Sons of the
+Clergy; again at the two hundredth anniversary of one of our most
+illustrious regiments of Foot Guards. On art, as all were prepared to
+expect, he delivered ripe words of wisdom at the Royal Academy in
+Trafalgar Square, and in laying the foundation in the capital of his
+wife&#8217;s Stuart ancestors of a new National Gallery for her Scottish
+subjects. Against the expectation, and to the loudly expressed surprise of
+all, save those who knew him thoroughly, he made a most admirable survey
+of the sciences and their uses, at one of the last meetings held ere his
+death, of the British Association for the Advancement of Science. Of art
+he was a judicious critic, as well as a munificent patron. It was at his
+special wish and option that the <i>savant</i> Lyon Playfair was made one of
+his Equerries; and that a residence in Hampton Court Palace was put at the
+disposal of Michael Faraday.</p>
+
+<p>How much of mingled love for art and artists, and at the same time of
+criticism most kindly and sagacious, is to be found in these brief
+sentences, extracted from his great speech at the Royal Academy dinner:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>An unkind word of criticism passes like a cold blast over their tender
+shoots, and shrivels them up, checking the flow of the sap, which was
+rising to produce, perhaps, multitudes of flowers and fruits. But
+still criticism is absolutely necessary to the development of art,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_145" id="Page_145">[Pg 145]</a></span>
+and the injudicious praise of an inferior work becomes an insult to
+superior genius. In this respect, our times are peculiarly favourable
+when compared with those when Madonnas were painted in the seclusion
+of convents; for we have now on the one hand the eager competition of
+a vast array of artists of every degree of talent and skill, and on
+the other, as judge, a great public, for the greater part wholly
+uneducated in art, and thus led by professional writers who often
+strive to impress the public with a great idea of their own artistic
+knowledge, by the merciless manner in which they treat works which
+cost those who produced them the highest efforts of mind or feeling.</p></div>
+
+<p>And again, as a companion and worthy picture&mdash;which is none the less, but
+all the more, worthy of hanging along with that we have just presented,
+that the great truth it teaches is presented with such lucid
+simplicity&mdash;take these sentences explanatory of the scope and end of such
+institutions as the British Association for the Advancement of Science,
+delivered by him as its President, at the 1859 Congress at Aberdeen:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">THE PRINCE&#8217;S EULOGY ON HUMBOLDT.</div>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>If the activity of this Association ever found, or could find its
+personification in one individual&mdash;its incarnation as it were&mdash;this
+had been found in that distinguished and revered philosopher who has
+been removed from amongst us in his ninetieth year, within the last
+few months. Alexander Von Humboldt ever strove after dominion over
+that universality of human knowledge which stands in need of
+thoughtful government and direction to preserve its integrity. He
+strove to tie up the fasces of scientific knowledge, to give them
+strength in unity. He treated all scientific men as members of one
+family, enthusiastically directing, fostering, and encouraging
+inquiry, where he saw either the want of or the willingness for it.
+His protection of the young and ardent student led many to success in
+their pursuits. His personal influence with the courts and governments
+of most countries in Europe, enabled him to plead the cause of science
+in a manner which made it more difficult to refuse than to grant what
+he requested. All lovers of Science deeply mourn for the loss of such
+a man. Gentlemen, it is a singular coincidence, that this very day on
+which we are here assembled, and are thus giving expression to our
+admiration of him, should be the anniversary of his birth.</p></div>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_146" id="Page_146">[Pg 146]</a></span>The Queen, who was staying at Balmoral, was very anxious about the manner
+in which her husband should pass the very severe ordeal of delivering an
+address to the assembled men of science. She recorded her high
+gratification at learning by telegram that &#8220;Albert&#8217;s reception was
+admirable, and that all was going off as well as possible. Thank God!&#8221; She
+invited the <i>savans</i>, to a f&ecirc;te at her Highland home; they accepted the
+invitation in great numbers; and &#8220;the philosophers,&#8221; of whom Her Majesty
+was not a little, and rather comically, afraid, were not only entertained
+with creature comforts, but the somewhat novel combination was presented
+of Owen, Brewster, Sabine, and Murchison, with their brethren of lesser
+renown, standing as spectators of contests of strength between athletes of
+the Grant, Farquharson, Duff, and other clans. Some of the more
+distinguished guests remained over night, and at dinner they rejoiced the
+Queen&#8217;s heart by &#8220;speaking in very high terms of my beloved Albert&#8217;s
+speech, the good it had done, and the general satisfaction it had caused.&#8221;</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">THE PRINCE AS AN AGRICULTURIST.</div>
+
+<p>Probably the capacity of all others in which the Prince became most
+generally familiar to the nation, was that of a practical, improving,
+scientific agriculturist; and we use this word in its twofold sense, as
+embracing the growing of crops and the rearing of live stock. Almost from
+the outset of his career amongst us he commenced a series of scientific
+agricultural experiments on the farms in Windsor Park. He renovated the
+agriculture of the Park, as much as he confessedly did its landscape
+gardening. He became a constant and most successful exhibitor of live
+domestic edible animals at the great agricultural shows; his example in
+this field having been followed<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_147" id="Page_147">[Pg 147]</a></span> since his death, to the great
+gratification of the agricultural interest, both by his widow and his
+eldest son; and, especially in the case of Her Majesty, with marked
+success. As a high and eminent authority on the subject has admirably put
+it&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>His was no merely idle, passing patronage or casual aid, but it was
+rather a pursuit he delighted in, and one he followed out with equal
+energy and advantage. The most practical man could not go that
+pleasant round from the Flemish farm to the Norfolk, and so back again
+by the Home and the Dairy, without learning something wherever he
+went.</p></div>
+
+<p>We must deny ourselves the pleasure of aught but passing reference to the
+admirable manner in which he discharged his academic duties as Chancellor
+of the University of Cambridge, which post he held from 1845 till his
+death, and about which we say enough when we remind or inform the reader
+that it was such men as Professor Sedgwick, the Vice-chancellor, who spoke
+of the exercise of his duties in this capacity in terms of the highest
+honour and estimation. Similar were his services to such noble
+institutions as Eton and Wellington Colleges, in both of which he offered
+prizes expressly calculated to encourage the pursuit of those studies
+which had been, or were most likely to be, ignored in their several cases.
+Horticulture, art exhibitions, the National Portrait Gallery, the Society
+of Arts, societies for improving the general condition and the housing of
+the labouring classes, mechanics&#8217; institutions&mdash;each of these constitutes
+a theme most pregnant and suggestive in connection with the Prince&#8217;s name
+and memory. But we can do no more than recite and dismiss the bald
+catalogue of topics. Reserving for the appropriate chronological occasion
+some<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_148" id="Page_148">[Pg 148]</a></span> brief remarks upon the character of the Prince as a private man, as
+contrasted with his aspects of character as a citizen and public
+benefactor, to which we have at present confined ourselves, we feel that
+we cannot better conclude than by condensing his opinions delivered in an
+address to the annual meeting of the Servants&#8217; Provident Benevolent
+Society, in 1849, in which the whole plan and doctrine by which he
+believed all really useful associated benevolence ought to be regulated
+was summed up. His view was that no such organisation was founded upon a
+right principle which did not require every man, by personal exertion, and
+by his own choice, to work out his own happiness. Benevolence he held to
+be not really such unless it stimulated providence, self-denial, and
+perseverance. He used special words of warning against those so frequent
+lotteries of uncertain and precarious advantages&mdash;&#8220;really a species of
+gambling&#8221;&mdash;expensive convivial meetings, balloting for prizes, and
+electioneering contests on a small scale. &#8220;Let them always bear in mind,&#8221;
+he proceeded to say, &#8220;that their savings are capital, that capital will
+only return a certain interest, and that any advantage offered beyond that
+interest has to be purchased at a commensurate risk of the capital
+itself.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Such is a view, but all too summary and inadequate, of some of the
+obligations which the English, as his fellow-citizens, owed to that Prince
+whose life was so intertwined with and influential on that of their
+Sovereign.</p>
+
+
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p><p>&nbsp;</p>
+<hr style="width: 50%;" />
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_149" id="Page_149">[Pg 149]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XVII" id="CHAPTER_XVII"></a>CHAPTER XVII.</h2>
+<p class="title">FOREIGN TRAVEL AND HOME VISITS.</p>
+
+<div class="note"><p class="hang">Visit to King Louis Philippe at Eu&mdash;A Loyal Corporation&mdash;Splendid
+Reception of the Queen in France&mdash;Anecdote of the Queen&#8217;s Regard for
+Prince Albert&mdash;Visit of the Czar Nicholas&mdash;Home Life in
+Scotland&mdash;Visit to Germany&mdash;Illuminations of the Rhine&mdash;A Rural F&ecirc;te
+at Coburg.</p></div>
+
+
+<p>In August, 1843, the Queen and Prince Albert made a yachting excursion
+round portions of the south coast and the Isle of Wight. Thence they
+steamed over to Treport, on the French coast, the nearest port to the
+Chateau d&#8217;Eu, a rural residence of Louis Philippe. On the arrival of the
+Queen and Prince from Windsor at Southampton, they were met at the end of
+the pier by the Duke of Wellington and other noble and official
+personages. It rained heavily, and as there was not sufficient covering
+for the stage intended to run on to the yacht <i>Victoria and Albert</i>, the
+members of the Corporation, like so many Raleighs, stripped off their red
+gowns in a moment, and the pathway was covered for Her Majesty&#8217;s use, so
+that Queen Victoria, like Queen Elizabeth, walked dry-footed to her
+vessel. The undergraduates at Cambridge acted precisely similarly on the
+occasion of a visit in wet weather by the Queen and Prince to that
+university in this year.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">VISIT TO FRANCE.</div>
+
+<p>The subsequent visit to France was wholly unexpected in England; and it
+was even said, and with some show of truth, that the Ministers were
+unaware of the intention.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_150" id="Page_150">[Pg 150]</a></span> Of course we cannot speak with any certainty,
+but it seems but too likely that Louis Philippe intrigued to secure the
+aid, or at least the condonation, of the Queen of England in those astute
+enterprises which his busy brain was even now concocting, with which the
+phrases &#8220;Pritchard and Tahiti,&#8221; and the &#8220;Spanish Marriages&#8221; will ever
+remain associated, and which ultimately, and retributively, cost him his
+throne. Mr. Raikes, who, be it remembered, was the intimate and bosom
+friend of the Duke of Wellington, then a Minister of England, has at this
+date the following entry in his Journal, which was published in 1857, and
+is an acknowledged, and if not absolutely an indisputable, yet a most
+weighty authority:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p><i>Tuesday, 19th.</i>&mdash;Much conversation after dinner about the Queen&#8217;s
+visit to Eu. I said, that the day before I left Paris, Kisseleff, the
+Russian Minister, scouted the idea of this visit, and betted that it
+would never take place. Lord Canning remarked, as a singular
+coincidence, that Brunow, the Russian Minister in London, asserted
+positively, on the very morning that the Queen embarked at
+Southampton, that she had no intention of going to Eu. They both
+spoke, I suppose, as they wished.</p></div>
+
+<p>This, it may be said, is mere club gossip. Not so what we are about to
+quote, and which was written under the Duke of Wellington&#8217;s roof:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p><i>Saturday, 23rd.</i>&mdash;I went down to Walmer Castle, and found the Duke
+walking with Mr. Arbuthnot on the ramparts, or, as it is called, the
+platform, which overlooks the sea.... After the company had departed
+at ten o&#8217;clock, I sat up with the Duke and Arbuthnot till twelve
+o&#8217;clock, talking on various topics.... I see that the Government was
+evidently opposed to the Queen&#8217;s visit to Eu. It was a wily intrigue,
+managed by Louis Philippe, through the intervention of his daughter,
+the Queen of the Belgians, during her frequent visits to Windsor with
+King Leopold, and was hailed by him with extreme joy, as the first
+admission of the King of the Barricades within<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_151" id="Page_151">[Pg 151]</a></span> the pale of legitimate
+sovereigns. The Duke said, &#8220;I was never let into the secret, nor did I
+believe the report then in circulation, till at last they sent to
+consult my opinion as to forming a regency during the Queen&#8217;s absence.
+I immediately referred to precedents as the only proper guide. I told
+them that George I., George II. (George III. never went abroad), and
+George IV. had all been obliged to appoint councils of regency; that
+Henry VIII., when he met Francis I. at Ardres, was then master of
+Calais, as also when he met Charles V. at Gravelines; so that, in
+these instances, Calais being a part of his dominions, he hardly did
+more than pass his frontier&mdash;not much more than going from one county
+to the next. Upon this I decided that the Queen could not quit this
+country without an Act of Regency. But she consulted the crown
+lawyers, who decided that it was not necessary, as courtiers would
+do.&#8221; I myself (resumes Raikes) did not believe in her going till two
+days before she went. Peel persisted afterwards that he had told me of
+it; but I knew I never heard it, and it was not a thing to have
+escaped me if I had.</p></div>
+
+<p>As for the reception at the Ch&acirc;teau d&#8217;Eu itself, it was of the most
+splendid character. One state ceremonial, however, is so very like
+another, that after those, the descriptions of which we have already
+furnished, a recital of the gay doings at Eu would hardly be palatable.
+The purport of the whole may be summed up very briefly. The French monarch
+endeavoured to allure the Queen into compliance with his wishes, by every
+seduction which nature and art, and the most refined and gallant courtesy,
+could supply. Everything that wealth, luxury, and taste could furnish was
+to be found amid scenes of more than royal magnificence, o&#8217;ershadowed by
+elms that dated back to the times of Henri Quatre.</p>
+
+<p>But there was business to be done, and the Queen was fortunate in having
+with her such trusty counsellors as Lords Aberdeen and Liverpool. A
+compact about the Spanish marriages was then and there made between France
+and England; a compact for the terms of which<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_152" id="Page_152">[Pg 152]</a></span> we are dependent, not alone
+upon English state papers, but upon the unimpeachable testimony of MM.
+Guizot and Regnault. As the starting-point of the one court was that the
+Queen of Spain should marry a Prince of the House of Coburg, and of the
+other that she should marry a Prince of the reigning French house, of
+course no settlement could be come to except by an unequivocal compromise.
+Thus did Lord Aberdeen and M. Guizot arrange it:&mdash;The King of France
+renounced all pretensions, on the part of any of his sons, to the hand of
+the Queen of Spain. It was stipulated that the Queen should choose her
+husband from the princely descendants of Philip V.; this stipulation
+excluding the dreaded competition of a Coburg. As to the projected
+marriage of the Duc de Montpensier, the son of Louis Philippe, with the
+Infanta Donna Maria, sister of the Queen of Spain, Louis Philippe agreed
+that it should not take place &#8220;till the Queen was married and had had
+children.&#8221; On these conditions, the Queen of England and her counsellors
+waived all objections to the marriage of the Duc de Montpensier. Louis
+Philippe kept his word by having his son married to the Infanta on the
+very same day, and at the same altar, as that on which her elder sister
+the Queen was married.</p>
+
+<p>In the summer of this year, the Princess Augusta of Cambridge, the Queen&#8217;s
+first cousin, was married to the Grand Duke of Mecklenburg-Strelitz. The
+following extract from the diary of Mr. Raikes will be admitted to be far
+from the least amusing and characteristic anecdote of the Queen which we
+present in these pages:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p><i>Tuesday, 26th September.</i>&mdash;This morning at breakfast, the Duke said
+to me, &#8220;Did you hear what happened at the wedding?&#8221; [meaning<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_153" id="Page_153">[Pg 153]</a></span> that of
+the Princess Augusta of Cambridge]. Replying in the negative, he
+continued, &#8220;When we proceeded to the signatures, the King of Hanover
+was very anxious to sign before Prince Albert, and when the Queen
+approached the table, he placed himself by her side, watching his
+opportunity. She knew very well what he was about, and just as the
+Archbishop was giving her the pen, she suddenly dodged around the
+table, placed herself next to the Prince, then quickly took the pen
+from the Archbishop, signed and gave it to Prince Albert, who also
+signed next, before it could be prevented. The Queen was also very
+anxious to give the precedence at Court to King Leopold before the
+King of Hanover, and she consulted me about it, and how it should be
+arranged. I told Her Majesty that I supposed it should be settled as
+we did at the congress of Vienna. &#8220;How was that,&#8221; said she, &#8220;by first
+arrival?&#8221; &#8220;No ma&#8217;am,&#8221; said I, &#8220;alphabetically, and then, you know, B
+comes before H.&#8221; This pleased her very much, and it was done.</p></div>
+
+<div class="sidenote">THE CZAR NICHOLAS.</div>
+
+<p>In June, 1844, the Queen was visited by her handsome and colossal
+godfather, the Czar Nicholas of All the Russias. The Queen received him
+with great magnificence, and there was a splendid series of entertainments
+at Windsor. The Czar made himself immensely popular with the female sex,
+by his magnificent gifts of jewels to the ladies of the Court; with the
+sterner sex, by the gift of a cup of uncommon splendour, to be annually
+run for at Ascot. &#8220;Every one who approached him,&#8221; says Sir Archibald
+Alison, &#8220;was struck by the manly dignity of his figure, his noble and
+serene countenance, and the polished courtesy of his manner, which threw a
+lustre even over the stately halls of Windsor.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>In September of the same year the Queen renewed her acquaintance with
+Scotland and the Scots; this time again enjoying the ducal hospitality of
+Blair Athole. This visit was entirely dissociated from all State
+paraphernalia. The Queen was up before the sun. The mists were hardly
+cleared away ere she and the Prince were to<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_154" id="Page_154">[Pg 154]</a></span> be seen walking in the
+grounds. They were generally accompanied by the Princess Royal, mounted on
+a Shetland pony. The Queen&#8217;s piper played under her bed-room window at
+dawn, and every morning a bunch of heather, with some icy-cold water from
+the celebrated spring in Glen Tilt, was laid on her dressing-table. One
+morning a lady, plainly dressed, left the Castle; who, though observed by
+the Highland guard on duty, was allowed to pass unnoticed, until after she
+had proceeded a considerable distance. But somebody having discovered that
+it was the Queen, a party of Highlanders turned out as a royal body-guard.
+She, however, signified her wish to dispense with their services, and they
+all returned to their stations. The Queen, meanwhile, moved onward through
+the Castle grounds alone, until she reached the lodge, the temporary
+residence of Lord and Lady Glenlyon, where, upon calling, with the
+intention, it was understood, of making some arrangements as to a
+preconcerted excursion to the Falls of Bruar, she was informed that his
+lordship had not yet arisen. The surprise of the servant may be conceived
+when Her Majesty announced who was to be intimated as having called upon
+his lordship. On her return, having taken a different route, and finding
+herself bewildered by the various roads which intersect the grounds in
+every direction, she asked some reapers to direct her to the Castle by the
+nearest way. They, not being aware to whom they spoke, immediately did so,
+by directing her to go through one of the parks, and across a paling which
+lay before her, and which she at once passed, and reached the Castle, a
+good deal amused, doubtless, with her morning&#8217;s excursion. In 1847 the
+Queen visited, for the first time, the Western Isles and Hebrides. In 1848
+she<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_155" id="Page_155">[Pg 155]</a></span> rented Balmoral, which she shortly afterwards purchased, and from the
+date of its acquisition it has been her place of regular resort for at
+least one period of every year.</p>
+
+<p>On the 9th of August, 1845, the Queen and Prince Albert embarked at
+Woolwich to visit the land of her maternity and his natal spot. In the
+Belgian and Prussian territories, and in the Duchy of Coburg itself, they
+were rapturously welcomed. At Bonn, they were serenaded by a monster
+orchestra, consisting of no fewer than sixty military bands. At the same
+city they assisted at the inauguration of the statue of Beethoven. The
+same evening they witnessed at Cologne an illumination and pyrotechnic
+display which turned the Rhine into a <i>feu-de-joie</i>. As darkness closed
+in, the dim and fetid city began to put forth buds of light; lines of
+twinkling brightness darted, like liquid gold and silver, from pile to
+pile, then along the famous bridge of boats, across the river, up the
+masts of the shipping, and all abroad on the opposite bank. Rockets now
+shot from all parts of the horizon. The royal party embarked in a steamer
+at St. Tremond, and glided down the river; as they passed, the banks
+blazed with fireworks and musketry. At their approach they glared with
+redoubled light; and, being suspended, let the vessel pass to Cologne,
+whose cathedral burst forth a building of light, every detail of the
+architecture being made out in delicately coloured lamps&mdash;pinkish, with an
+underglow of orange. A few days afterwards the Queen steamed up the Rhine.
+At Stoltzenfelz there was another magnificent illumination and display of
+fireworks. The whole river, both its banks, its crags, ravines, and ruins,
+were simultaneously lighted up; showers of rockets and other fireworks
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_156" id="Page_156">[Pg 156]</a></span>besprinkled the firmament, while repeated salvoes of artillery called the
+grandeur of resonant sound to the aid of visible beauty.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">VISIT TO COBURG.</div>
+
+<p>At Coburg the Queen, as might be supposed, was still more cordially
+welcomed than at any of her previous stopping places. She and the Prince
+stopped at the Castle of Rosenau, and they occupied the room in which he
+had been born. A magnificent stag-hunt was got up for their entertainment;
+but what pleased the Queen most was being present at a festival entitled
+&#8220;The Feast of Gregorius.&#8221; This was a species of carnival, in which the
+burghers and rustics, their wives and children, disguised in masks,
+indulged in innocent and exuberant gaiety. The Queen and her relatives
+freely mixed with the revellers. She talked to the children, to their
+great astonishment, &#8220;in their own language.&#8221; Tired of dancing and
+processions, and freed from all awe by the ease of their illustrious
+visitors, the children took to romps, &#8220;thread-my-needle,&#8221; and other
+pastimes, and finally were well pelted by the royal circle with bon-bons,
+flowers, and cakes.</p>
+
+
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p><p>&nbsp;</p>
+<hr style="width: 50%;" />
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_157" id="Page_157">[Pg 157]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XVIII" id="CHAPTER_XVIII"></a>CHAPTER XVIII.</h2>
+<p class="title">THE QUEEN IN IRELAND.</p>
+
+<div class="note"><p class="hang">First Visit to Ireland&mdash;Rapturous Reception at Cork&mdash;Queenstown so
+Denominated&mdash;Enthusiasm at Dublin&mdash;Its Graceful Recognition by the
+Queen&mdash;Visit to the Dublin Exhibition&mdash;Encouragement of Native
+Industry&mdash;Visit to the Lakes of Killarney&mdash;The Whirligig of Time.</p></div>
+
+
+<p>For twelve years after her accession to the throne, the Queen was a
+personal stranger to the shores of Erin. Amongst the numerous fruits of
+the tranquillity restored to Ireland, after the disturbances and sedition
+which had culminated in the &#8220;Young Ireland&#8221; rising of 1848, was a visit
+paid by the Queen to her subjects on the west of St. George&#8217;s Channel in
+the autumn of 1849. Immediately after the prorogation of Parliament, the
+Queen and Prince Albert proceeded to Cowes, where a Royal squadron was
+ready to receive them. Under its escort, and being accompanied by their
+two eldest children, they steered for Cork. The Queen selected as the
+first spot of Irish ground on which to land, the port which, up to the
+date of her disembarkation, had been known as the Cove of Cork. She gave a
+command that, in commemoration of the circumstance, the Cove should
+thenceforth be designated Queenstown. Having re-embarked, the Royal party
+steamed up the beautiful bay to the city of Cork itself, where a
+magnificent reception awaited them. The squadron proceeded at a slow<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_158" id="Page_158">[Pg 158]</a></span>
+rate. In spite of its arrival at a much earlier date than had been
+anticipated, the news spread like wildfire, and the country people
+assembled in prodigious numbers on the shores of the Cove, which were
+crowded with multitudes of excited Celts, whose wild shouts, mingled with
+the firing of cannon and small arms, and the ringing of bells, made the
+whole scene animated beyond description. From Cork, the Queen proceeded to
+Dublin. There her reception was described by an eye-witness as &#8220;a sight
+never to be forgotten.&#8221;</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">FIRST VISIT TO IRELAND.</div>
+
+<p>The Queen, turning from side to side, bowed low repeatedly. Prince Albert
+shared in and acknowledged the plaudits of the people; while the Royal
+children were objects of universal attention and admiration. Her Majesty
+seemed to feel deeply the warmth of her reception. She paused at the end
+of the platform for a moment, and again making her acknowledgments, was
+hailed with a tremendous cheer as she entered the terminus of the short
+railway line which connects Kingston with Dublin. On her departure, a few
+days later, an incident still more gratifying to the Irish people
+occurred. As the Royal yacht approached the extremity of the pier near the
+lighthouse, where the people were most thickly congregated, and who were
+cheering enthusiastically, the Queen suddenly left the two
+Ladies-in-waiting with whom she was conversing, ran with agility along the
+deck, and climbed the paddle-box to join Prince Albert, who did not notice
+her till she was nearly at his side. Reaching out to him, and taking his
+arm, she waved her hand to the people on the piers. She appeared to give
+some order to the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_159" id="Page_159">[Pg 159]</a></span> captain: the paddles immediately ceased to move, and
+the vessel merely floated on. The Royal Standard was lowered in courtesy
+to the thousands cheering on shore, and this stately obeisance was
+repeated five times.</p>
+
+<p>This gracious and well-timed visit to Ireland was a very significant proof
+of the Royal confidence in the unshaken allegiance of the bulk of the
+Irish people; and it likewise showed a just appreciation of the prudent
+energy and humane moderation with which her Ministers had so fortunately
+composed the recent unhappy tumults. Nearly thirty years had elapsed since
+a British sovereign had appeared in Ireland; and between the visit of
+George IV. and that of Queen Victoria, there was in common only the
+circumstance that both were royal visits. George, as King of Ireland, in
+1821, was not the king of a free nation; the victory of civil and
+religious liberty had yet to be achieved for and by the Irish; a minority
+engrossed the national Government and monopolised its emoluments of every
+degree; the very existence of the people as a people had not been
+recognised, and the King himself was peculiarly and bitterly identified
+with the faction which held the race and their creed in thraldom. Thus, in
+1821, the Crown of England possessed for Ireland little lustre or utility,
+nor did it evoke any well-grounded loyalty and devotion from its people.</p>
+
+<p>Queen Victoria and her visit, on the contrary, represented those popular
+principles and sympathies which are the brightest jewels of the British
+Crown, and are now set firmly in it for ever. Her visit, at once august
+and affectionate, was a visit to a nation which was not only loyal but
+free. &#8220;And joy came well in<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_160" id="Page_160">[Pg 160]</a></span> such, a needful time.&#8221; The joy was exuberant
+and universal. As the loyalty was rendered to a young Queen, it partook of
+the romantic and strictly national nature of gallantry. To witness that
+joy must have been the fittest punishment for the disaffected.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;We do not remember,&#8221; says an authority not given to rhapsody or
+exaggeration, &#8220;in the chronicles of royal progresses, to have met with any
+description of a scene more splendid, more imposing, more joyous, or more
+memorable, than the entry of the Queen into the Irish capital.&#8221; The houses
+were absolutely roofed and walled with spectators. They were piled throng
+above throng, till their occupants clustered like bees about the vanes and
+chimney tops. The noble streets of Dublin seemed to have been removed, and
+built anew of Her Majesty&#8217;s lieges. The squares resembled the interiors of
+crowded amphitheatres. Facades of public buildings were formed for the day
+of radiant human faces. Invention exhausted itself in preparing the
+language of greeting, and the symbols of welcome. For miles the chariot of
+the gay and gratified Sovereign passed under parti-coloured (not
+<i>party</i>-coloured) streamers, waving banners, festal garlands, and
+triumphal arches. The latter seemed constructed of nothing else than solid
+flowers, as if the hands of Flora herself had reared them. At every
+appropriate point jocund music sent forth strains of congratulation; but
+banners, flowers, arches, and music were all excelled by the jubilant
+shouts which tore the empyrean, loud, clear, and resonant, not only above
+drum and trumpet, but above even the saluting thunders of the fleet.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">VISIT TO AN IRISH NATIONAL SCHOOL.</div>
+
+<p>Perhaps, apart from the mere loyal enthusiasm of the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_161" id="Page_161">[Pg 161]</a></span> occasion, the most
+important and significant incident of the visit was the following. It did
+not fail to be remarked that the first institution which Her Majesty
+visited in the capital was the central establishment of the Irish National
+Schools&mdash;the first-fruits of Irish liberty, and the noblest possession of
+the Irish people. The Queen knew that in these excellent schools the youth
+of all persuasions were trained together, not in the love and pursuit of
+knowledge alone, but in the habit of tolerance and the spirit of charity.
+The Queen, by this visit, passed her personal approval and sanction upon a
+system which is equally the antithesis of sectarian discord and the
+promoter of religious independence. Here, also, she discovered (or already
+knew, as was much more likely) that there was imparted the most useful,
+solid, and practical instruction, one of a character most precisely
+adapted to the wants, pursuits, interests, and occupations of the classes
+in whose behalf it was devised. In her survey and inspection of the Normal
+Schools, the Queen was attended by the Protestant and the Romanist
+Archbishops, and the representatives of other Christian denominations,
+friendly to the great scheme, stood beside and around her. That quite as
+much importance and significance as we have accorded to it was assigned to
+this visit of the Queen to the Normal National Schools, sufficiently
+appears from these closing sentences of the Report of the Irish Education
+Commissioners for 1849:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>We cannot conclude our Report for 1849 without alluding with pride and
+gratitude to the visit with which our Model Schools were honoured on
+the 7th of August, by Her Majesty Queen Victoria, and by her Royal
+Consort, Prince Albert, accompanied by your Excellency.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_162" id="Page_162">[Pg 162]</a></span> We are
+convinced that this visit, so promptly and cordially made, has left an
+indelible impression upon the hearts of the poor of Ireland, for whose
+benefit our system has been established; and that they will ever
+regard the compliment as the most appropriate and decisive that could
+have been paid by Her Majesty to themselves. All reflecting men,
+whether friends or opponents of our institution, have not failed to
+see the importance of the step. By the country at large it has been
+hailed as an eminent proof of Her Majesty&#8217;s wisdom and goodness, and
+as peculiarly worthy of the daughter of that illustrious Prince who
+was the ardent advocate of the education of the poor, when denounced
+by many as a dangerous novelty; and of their united education on just
+and comprehensive principles, when most men regarded it as
+impracticable.</p></div>
+
+<div class="sidenote">VISIT TO THE LAKES OF KILLARNEY.</div>
+
+<p>Four years later, when the first International Exhibition was held at
+Dublin, the Queen renewed her acquaintance with her Irish subjects. Making
+a somewhat lengthened stay at the vice-regal residence, she charmed the
+people by the freedom with which she mingled amongst them, and by the
+special attention and the bounteous patronage which she bestowed upon the
+little-developed but beautiful specimens of their indigenous textile
+industries in the Exhibition building. A third and a much more prolonged
+visit was made in the autumn of 1861, the Queen having honoured Lord
+Castlerosse and Mr. Herbert of Muckross, two gentlemen whose seats and
+demesnes are situate on the shores of the beauteous Lakes of Killarney, by
+accepting their hospitable invitations. Over the lakes, their islets, and
+their surrounding mountains and mountain passes, the Queen roved as freely
+and unrestrainedly as was her wont in the retreats in which she had year
+after year sojourned, after the turmoil of the London season, in the
+Scottish Highlands. It was observed with pleasure that, amongst other
+indications of change which the whirligig of time had brought round,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_163" id="Page_163">[Pg 163]</a></span> Mr.
+James O&#8217;Connell, the brother of the &#8220;Liberator,&#8221; dined more than once with
+Her Majesty at the tables of her noble and gentle hosts; and the hounds
+that forced a stag to take to the Lake&mdash;one of the immemorial sports
+associated with Killarney&mdash;formed a portion of the pack which belonged to
+his two sons.</p>
+
+
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p><p>&nbsp;</p>
+<hr style="width: 50%;" />
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_164" id="Page_164">[Pg 164]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XIX" id="CHAPTER_XIX"></a>CHAPTER XIX.</h2>
+<p class="title">THE WORLD&#8217;S CONGRESS OF INDUSTRY.</p>
+
+<div class="note"><p class="hang">Prince Albert the Inaugurator of International Exhibitions&mdash;Proposes,
+Unsuccessfully, his Scheme to the Government&mdash;To the Society of Arts,
+Successfully&mdash;First Steps towards Realisation&mdash;Objections to be
+Met&mdash;Perseverance of the Prince&mdash;The Royal Commission&mdash;The Prince&#8217;s
+Speech at York&mdash;The Opening Ceremony&mdash;The Royal Procession.</p></div>
+
+
+<p>As early as 1848 Prince Albert submitted to the Government a proposal to
+establish an exhibition of works of industry in this country; but the
+members of the Government could not be induced to afford to it any of that
+encouragement which it was sought to obtain. Despairing of acquiring
+assistance in this quarter, but hopeful, courageous, and unbaffled, the
+Prince, who was President of the Society of Arts, in the following year
+betook himself to that more likely and congenial quarter. Not content,
+however, with following in the wake of previous Expositions which had been
+held in Paris and elsewhere, he suggested the happy idea of so extending
+its range as to include within it the works of industry and the art
+treasures of all lands. He convened on his own responsibility a meeting at
+Buckingham Palace, on the 30th of June, 1849, where he proposed that the
+Exhibition should be divided into four sections: the first being raw
+materials and produce illustrative of the natural productions<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_165" id="Page_165">[Pg 165]</a></span> in which
+human industry is employed; the second, machinery for agricultural,
+manufacturing, engineering, and other purposes, and mechanical inventions
+illustrative of the agents which human ingenuity brings to bear upon the
+products of nature; the third, manufactures illustrative of the results
+produced by the operation of human industry upon natural produce; the
+fourth, sculpture, models, and the plastic arts generally, illustrative of
+the skill displayed in such applications of human industry.</p>
+
+<p>When this proposal of a display so novel was first made, there existed no
+public enthusiasm to welcome the daring scheme, and all were in utter
+ignorance of those mechanical means of accomplishing it which to the
+present generation are so simple and obvious. It was met by countless
+cavils and objections without end. But the Prince had insight enough to
+discriminate between the real body of public opinion, lethargic and slow
+to move, yet ductile and malleable, and the artificial clamour of the
+marplots. Fortunately for the success of the great enterprise, the Prince
+possessed within himself the happiest combination of the highest station
+with those indomitable qualities of hopeful perseverance which were
+necessary to overcome the innumerable impediments which threatened more
+than once to mar the success of the great work. He succeeded in getting
+associated with him an active body of Commissioners, who, encouraged by
+the untiring industry which their illustrious President displayed,
+persevered in their work; and one by one the practical difficulties
+disappeared before the clear and vigorous intellect which the Prince
+brought to bear upon their discussions.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">THE GREAT EXHIBITION.</div>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_166" id="Page_166">[Pg 166]</a></span>But he remained, indeed, the <i>facile princeps</i> in maturing, as he had been
+in designing, the scheme. This is no mere language of eulogy, for the
+records of the Commissioners of the Exhibition have placed in print
+undoubted proofs that equally the completion with the progress, and the
+progress quite as much as the origin, of the Exhibition of 1851, were
+mainly due to the large conception and wise foresight of the Prince
+Consort. The public at the time knew but little, and many of its
+constituent atoms know but little to this day, of the amount of anxious
+thought and labour which he devoted to the success of the great
+undertaking that made the year 1851 memorable as a new starting-point in
+the industrial and social history of the world. One important point, apart
+altogether from his personal merits, must never be lost sight of. His own
+high name and his close relation to the Sovereign, added a lustre to the
+Royal Commission which would otherwise have been totally lacking, and gave
+ground for that confidence to foreign powers which they displayed so
+signally and with so little stint.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">PRINCE ALBERT AT YORK.</div>
+
+<p>At a banquet held at York about six months before the Exhibition opened,
+the Prince in a long address, in which he replied to the toast of his
+health, indicated, though most modestly and unconsciously, at once the
+arduous nature of his preliminary labours and the zeal with which he
+pursued them. In the name of the Commissioners, who had been invited to
+the banquet <i>en masse</i>, he thanked his hosts for the proof thereby made
+plain of their earnest and combined zeal in the cause of the approaching
+Exhibition. He rejoiced that it was not a mere impulse of momentary
+enthusiasm which they<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_167" id="Page_167">[Pg 167]</a></span> evinced, but a spirit of steady perseverance and
+sustained effort, and he assured his auditors that the spirit of active
+preparation and hopeful faith was abroad in the country. Of this, he said,
+he was confident, on the ground of information which reached him from all
+quarters. And he added, and the event proved him to be right, his own
+personal conviction that the works in preparation would be such as to
+dispel any apprehension about the position which British industry would
+maintain. Of his brother Commissioners he spoke with loyal and chivalrous
+fervour. He thanked, in their name, the public for their uninterrupted
+confidence in those who were responsible for the management of the scheme;
+and stated that there had been no difference of opinion between the
+central and the local committees, which had not, upon personal
+consultation and open discussion vanished, and given way to agreement and
+identity of purpose. So much for hope: the test of fruition had yet to
+come.</p>
+
+<p>At length the great event to which the whole civilised world had been
+looking forward for eighteen months with mingled interest and
+curiosity&mdash;the opening of the great congress of industry and art&mdash;was
+accomplished with a pomp and solemnity of ceremonial suitable to the
+dignity of the occasion, and the important social interests which it
+involved. Spite of all predictions to the contrary&mdash;spite of the
+faint-hearted forebodings which the wild confusion of the interior of the
+building in the last days of April excused, if it did not justify&mdash;the
+building was ready and furnished with the world&#8217;s wares at the appointed
+time. At two o&#8217;clock on the last day of April the building was cleared by
+police and guardsmen of all<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_168" id="Page_168">[Pg 168]</a></span> exhibitors and their assistants, and the
+preparations for the opening day, already partially made, were pursued
+with the utmost zeal and vigour.</p>
+
+<p>Never dawned a brighter morning than that of the May Day which succeeded.
+The sky was clear and blue, the air as cool, crisp, and genial as a poet
+or artist could wish, and the sun came forth in undimmed splendour.
+London, reinforced by a multitude of visitors, was early astir and afoot.
+At six the Park gates were opened, and through them at once commenced to
+pour carriages from all parts of the metropolis and its neighbourhood,
+filled with gaily attired courtiers, cits, and provincials. The line of
+route was kept by mounted soldiers and police; but their task was rendered
+almost perfunctory, so fully did all appear animated with the one desire
+to signalise this truly popular ceremonial with generous and kindly
+feeling, and a respect for the rights and duties of one another. The only
+houses from which a sight could be got of the royal procession were those
+at Grosvenor Gate and at Hyde Park Corner. These were crowded with
+well-dressed persons, of whom ladies formed the majority, up to the very
+roofs. The roofs of Apsley House and the park-keeper&#8217;s lodge were
+similarly tenanted. The windows of Buckingham Palace, which had recently
+been new fronted, were filled with eager spectators, chiefly members of
+the Household, their relatives and friends. The centre balcony was
+occupied by the younger princes and princesses, attended by several
+ladies.</p>
+
+<p>Precisely at eleven the Life Guards commenced to widen the path for the
+procession. At half-past eleven, the band of the regiment playing &#8220;God
+save the Queen,&#8221; the royal cort&egrave;ge set forth, amid the cheers of the vast<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_169" id="Page_169">[Pg 169]</a></span>
+assembled multitude. The procession was of anything but an ostentatious
+character. The eight carriages of which it was composed were drawn by but
+two horses each. There were no Gentlemen-Ushers, Grooms, or Yeomen of the
+Guard. Trumpeters there were, but their trumpets were silent. At a quarter
+to twelve the procession reached the northern entrance of the Palace, and
+the Queen alighted amid the strains of the National Anthem, a salvo of
+artillery, and the lusty cheers of enormous multitudes on both sides of
+the Serpentine.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">OPENING OF THE EXHIBITION.</div>
+
+<p>Meanwhile, from nine o&#8217;clock, the appointed hour of opening, the building
+had been rapidly filling, all the visitors being remarkably well dressed,
+and a large majority of them ladies. &#8220;The first <i>coup d&#8217;&oelig;il</i> of the
+building, on entering the nave, was grand and gorgeous in the extreme; the
+vast dimensions of the structure, the breadth of light, partially subdued
+and agreeably mellowed in the nave by the calico coverings placed over the
+roof, whilst the arched transept soared boldly into the clear arch of
+heaven, courting, admitting, and distributing the full effulgence of the
+noon-day sun; the bright and striking colours and forms of the several
+articles in rich manufactured goods, works in sculpture, and other objects
+displayed by the exhibitors, dissimilar and almost incongruous in their
+variety, were blent into an harmonious picture of immense grandeur by the
+attendant circumstances of space and light to which we have just alluded;
+and the busy hum and eager and excited movements of the assembled
+thousands infused the breath of life into a picture, which, at the period
+of the crowning incident of the day, became truly sublime.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>By eleven o&#8217;clock, after which hour none of the general<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_170" id="Page_170">[Pg 170]</a></span> public could be
+admitted, the Honourable Corps of Gentlemen-at-Arms, in their gay
+uniforms, had taken up their places in the rear of the dais set for the
+Queen. This dais was covered with a splendid carpet, which had been
+specially worked for the occasion by 150 ladies, and on this was placed a
+magnificent chair of state, covered with a cloth of crimson and gold. High
+over head was suspended an octagon canopy, trimmed with blue satin, and
+draperies of blue and white. The trumpeters and heralds were in readiness
+to proclaim the arrival of the Queen, and Sir George Smart stood, baton in
+hand, perched up in a small rostrum, &#8220;ready to beat time to &#8216;God save the
+Queen&#8217; for the five hundredth time in his life.&#8221; The Commissioners of the
+Exhibition and the foreign ambassadors stood in the entrance hall,
+prepared to pay their respects to Her Majesty on her arrival. The Queen
+entered, leaning on her husband&#8217;s arm, and being also accompanied by the
+Princess Royal and Prince of Wales. The Queen wore a dress of pink satin,
+brocaded with gold; Prince Albert a Field-Marshal&#8217;s uniform; the Prince of
+Wales was in a Highland dress, while the Princess was clad in white satin,
+with a wreath of flowers round her head. A tremendous burst of cheering,
+renewed and prolonged from all parts of the building, greeted the
+announcement of the arrival of the Queen.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">THE ADDRESS OF THE PRINCE.</div>
+
+<p>Her Majesty was conducted to her chair of state by the Commissioners,
+Cabinet, and Foreign Ministers. As they stood around her chair, in their
+bright Court dresses and brilliant uniforms, a choir of nearly a thousand
+voices sang &#8220;God save the Queen.&#8221; At the conclusion of its last strain,
+Prince Albert descended from the dais, and taking his place with his
+brother Commissioners, read a<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_171" id="Page_171">[Pg 171]</a></span> long address to Her Majesty, in which he
+recited the history, plan, and intent of the magnificent and magnanimous
+scheme which was so largely the product of his own heart and brain. These
+and other less important particulars having been enumerated, the Prince
+thus concluded:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>It affords us much gratification that, notwithstanding the magnitude
+of this undertaking, and the great distances from which many of the
+articles now exhibited have had to be collected, the day on which your
+Majesty has graciously pleased to be present at the inauguration of
+the Exhibition is the same day that was originally named for its
+opening, thus affording a proof of what may, under God&#8217;s blessing, be
+accomplished by good-will and cordial co-operation amongst nations,
+aided by the means which modern science has placed at our command.</p>
+
+<p>Having thus briefly laid before your Majesty the results of our
+labours, it now only remains for us to convey to your Majesty our
+dutiful and loyal acknowledgments of the support and encouragement
+which we have derived throughout this extensive and laborious task
+from the gracious favour and countenance of your Majesty. It is our
+heartfelt prayer that this undertaking, which has for its end the
+promotion of all branches of human industry, and the strengthening of
+the bonds of peace and friendship among all the nations of the earth,
+may, by the blessing of Divine Providence, conduce to the welfare of
+your Majesty&#8217;s people, and be long remembered among the brightest
+circumstances of your Majesty&#8217;s peaceful and happy reign.</p></div>
+
+<p>The Queen read a short reply, the tenor of which was warmly to re-echo the
+hopes and sentiments contained in the address of the Prince. The
+Archbishop of Canterbury then offered up a consecratory prayer, which was
+followed by the performance of the &#8220;Hallelujah Chorus,&#8221; under the
+direction of Sir Henry Bishop. A very long procession, in which the Queen
+went hand in hand with her son, and Prince Albert with his daughter, was
+then marshalled, and having marched round the interior of the building, it
+was declared formally opened.</p>
+
+
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p><p>&nbsp;</p>
+<hr style="width: 50%;" />
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_172" id="Page_172">[Pg 172]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XX" id="CHAPTER_XX"></a>CHAPTER XX.</h2>
+<p class="title">THE WAR CLOUD.</p>
+
+<div class="note"><p class="hang">Bright Hopes of Peace Dispelled&mdash;An Era of War all over the World&mdash;The
+Russian War&mdash;The Queen&#8217;s Visits to the Wounded Soldiers&mdash;Presentation
+of the War Medals&mdash;Crimean Heroes&mdash;The Volunteer Movement.</p></div>
+
+
+<p>Fair and peaceful to all seeming were the prospects of humanity and the
+world when the doors of the Hyde Park Exhibition were closed for the last
+
+time, and while its materials were being removed to be erected in more
+than their pristine beauty on the summit of one of the finest heights
+which environ the sloping basin on which the British metropolis is built.
+But a cloud, it might be no bigger than a man&#8217;s hand, but pregnant with
+ill, was on the horizon. The Exhibition closed a long era of peace in
+Europe and the world, an era which had been marred, so far as we were
+concerned, only by wars in our most distant Oriental dependencies; and, so
+far as the Continent was concerned, only by the aggressions of the
+potentates who constituted the Holy Alliance, by the revolutionary
+movements of 1848, and their sanguinary repression in the year following.
+Against the hopes of all, and the belief of most, good men and women, the
+Exhibition inaugurated one of the most martial terms of time which have
+formed a part of purely modern history. A year had hardly gone by ere
+Napoleon effected his <i>coup<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_173" id="Page_173">[Pg 173]</a></span> d&#8217;&eacute;tat</i>, that fertile source of future
+evils&mdash;evils which are by no means yet exhausted. Then came the Russian
+War, which cost us in England a hundred thousand lives and at least a
+hundred millions of pounds. We had hardly celebrated, and rejoiced over,
+and illuminated our dwellings and public buildings in celebration of, the
+Peace of Paris, ere in India we had to put forth the utmost might of our
+imperial power to vindicate our &#8220;Raj&#8221; over Moslem and Hindoo, and to
+avenge the foul deeds done at Cawnpore. When Prince Albert was, in the
+mystery of providential rule, stricken down in his prime, Italy and
+Austria were just beginning to recover from the effects of the contests
+waged between trained troops at the Voltorno and by the Garibaldian
+guerillas in the Valteline. The first message which was conveyed by the
+new-laid Atlantic cable was a message of good-will from the grand-daughter
+of George III. to him who sat in the seat of the rebel Washington. The
+first experimental cable had hardly been destroyed by the potency of old
+ocean, churlish and jealous of the invasion of his domain, ere that great
+contest broke out across the Atlantic, which brought about the abolition
+of slavery throughout the United States. Hardly had our young Prince
+brought home his bonny bride ere the subjects who owed her father
+allegiance were called upon to hold their own against the mighty force
+wielded by a power, of which the queenly diadem must ere long be worn by
+England&#8217;s dear and best-beloved daughter. The Danish War was hardly
+concluded ere the aggressor, returning victorious from his northern
+confines, turned his face to the south, and inflicted a catastrophe quite
+as telling and decisive upon that ancient dynasty, which has been more
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_174" id="Page_174">[Pg 174]</a></span>frequently allied with England in the great martial embroglios of the
+past than any other power of Europe.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">AN ERA OF WAR.</div>
+
+<p>We have said that Napoleon&#8217;s <i>coup d&#8217;&eacute;tat</i> of December, 1852, sounded the
+tocsin of that period of war which has lasted without sensible
+intermission from then until now. With that <i>coup d&#8217;&eacute;tat</i> Victoria found
+herself by an accident somewhat closely allied. Some time after the close
+of the parliamentary session of 1851, all England was startled by the
+sudden announcement of the resignation by Lord Palmerston of the seals of
+the Foreign Office, which he held in the first Administration of Lord John
+Russell. On the meeting of Parliament in 1852, questions were at once
+addressed to the Treasury Benches in both Houses soliciting explanations
+of the circumstances. In the Lower House the querist was Sir Benjamin
+Hawes. Lord John Russell declared his perfect readiness to answer the
+question which had been put to him by Sir Benjamin Hawes, though he said
+he could not do so without entering into some details. These &#8220;details&#8221;
+were in the main as follows:&mdash;He commenced with a full and frank
+acknowledgment of the energy, the ability, and the extensive knowledge of
+the interests of England in all parts of the world which preeminently
+distinguished Lord Palmerston, and said that he the more regretted, on
+that account, that circumstances had occurred which prevented his acting
+any longer with him as a colleague. He laid down at starting what he
+conceived to be the correct doctrine as to the position which a Secretary
+of State holds as regards the Crown in the administration of foreign
+affairs. He held that when the Crown, in consequence of a vote of the
+House of Commons, places its constitutional confidence in a<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_175" id="Page_175">[Pg 175]</a></span> minister,
+that minister is, on the other hand, bound to afford the Crown its full
+liberty&mdash;a liberty which the Crown must possess&mdash;of saying that the
+minister no longer possesses its confidence. This was the general
+doctrine; but it so happened that with regard to Lord Palmerston
+individually, the precise terms were laid down, in 1850, in a
+communication on the part of Her Majesty with respect to the transaction
+of business between the Crown and the Foreign Secretary. Lord John said he
+had been the organ of that communication, and therefore assumed its
+responsibility. Its chief passage thus ran:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>The Queen requires, first, that Lord Palmerston will distinctly state
+what he proposes in a given case, in order that the Queen may know as
+distinctly to what she is giving her Royal sanction. Secondly, having
+once given her sanction to a measure, that it be not arbitrarily
+altered or modified by the Minister. Such an act she must consider as
+failing in sincerity towards the Crown, and justly to be visited by
+the exercise of her constitutional right of dismissing that Minister.
+She expects to be kept informed of what passes between him and the
+Foreign Ministers, before important decisions are taken based upon
+that intercourse; to receive the foreign despatches in good time, and
+to have the drafts for her approval sent to her in sufficient time to
+make herself acquainted with their contents before they must be sent
+off. The Queen thinks it best that Lord John Russell should show this
+letter to Lord Palmerston.</p></div>
+
+<div class="sidenote">DISMISSAL OF LORD PALMERSTON.</div>
+
+<p>Lord John went on to say that, in his view, Lord Palmerston had violated
+this explicit understanding, at least in two instances&mdash;one of a
+comparatively trifling, but the other of a most important character&mdash;since
+the conclusion of the session of the year previous (1851). The former had
+reference to some incautious remarks which were said to have fallen from
+the lips of the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_176" id="Page_176">[Pg 176]</a></span> Foreign Secretary on the occasion of receiving a
+deputation of sympathisers with Hungary. The other related to Napoleon&#8217;s
+<i>coup d&#8217;&eacute;tat</i> of the 2nd of December previous. The instructions given to
+our Ambassador at Paris by the Queen&#8217;s Government were to abstain from all
+interference with the internal affairs of France. Lord John had been
+informed of an alleged conversation between Lord Palmerston and the French
+Minister in London, the tenor of which was repugnant to those
+instructions. He had therefore at once written to him, but his
+communication had been treated with disdainful silence. Meanwhile Lord
+Palmerston, without the knowledge of his colleagues, wrote a despatch to
+Lord Normanby, our Minister at Paris, in which, however, he evaded the
+question whether he approved the act of the President. He considered
+altogether that Lord Palmerston had put himself in the place and assumed
+the prerogative of the Crown; that he had &#8220;passed by&#8221; the Crown, while he
+gave the moral approbation of England to the acts of Louis Napoleon, in
+direct opposition to the policy which the Government had hitherto pursued.
+Under these circumstances, he had no alternative but to declare that,
+while he was Prime Minister, Lord Palmerston could not hold the seals of
+office; for he had &#8220;forgotten and neglected what was due to the Crown and
+his colleagues.&#8221;</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">THE WAR IN THE CRIMEA.</div>
+
+<p>On the 27th of March, 1854, the following message from the Crown was read
+to the Peers by the Lord Chancellor. It explains itself. Nor is it
+necessary for us to re-write here a single line of one of the brightest
+and freshest pages of the recent history of England. We had long been
+&#8220;drifting into war,&#8221; to use Lord Clarendon&#8217;s<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_177" id="Page_177">[Pg 177]</a></span> memorable phrase, and at
+last the die was irrevocably, though reluctantly, cast.</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+<p><span style="margin-left: 2em;"><span class="smcap">Victoria R.</span></span></p>
+
+<p>Her Majesty thinks it proper to acquaint the House that the
+negotiations in which Her Majesty, in concert with her allies, has for
+some time past been engaged with His Majesty the Emperor of All the
+Russias, have terminated, and that Her Majesty feels bound to afford
+active assistance to her ally the Sultan against unprovoked
+aggression.</p>
+
+<p>Her Majesty has given directions for laying before the House copies of
+such papers, in addition to those already communicated to Parliament,
+as will afford the fullest information with regard to the subject of
+these negotiations. It is a consolation to reflect that no endeavours
+have been wanting on her part to preserve to her subjects the
+blessings of peace.</p>
+
+<p>Her Majesty&#8217;s just expectations have been disappointed, and Her
+Majesty relies with confidence on the zeal and devotion of the House
+of Lords, and the exertions of her brave and loyal subjects to support
+her in her determination to employ the power and resources of the
+nation for protecting the dominions of the Sultan against the
+encroachments of Russia.</p></div>
+
+<p>Alma, Balaklava, and Inkerman had been fought and won, and the horrid
+winter in the trenches had not yet passed away. These days and nights of
+constant fighting had left us many fell remembrances of their grievous
+coming and going. The Eastern hospitals, at Scutari and within the lines
+of our camp, were choke-full of the wounded. Some few who could bear the
+pain of transit were brought home, and no one in England was more
+solicitous of their welfare and wise and kindly tending than England&#8217;s
+Queen. Her visits to the hospitals were as welcome as they were frequent.</p>
+
+<p>On the 8th of March, 1855, the Queen, accompanied by Prince Albert, and by
+the Duke of Cambridge, the Prince of Wales, and Prince Alfred, visited the
+military<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_178" id="Page_178">[Pg 178]</a></span> hospitals at Fort Pitt and Brompton, Chatham. Fort Pitt was then
+the only general military hospital in England. As this hospital and that
+of Brompton contained together only 361 patients, it could not be
+considered that the royal visit was elicited by the peculiar calamities of
+the place. But the immense extent of the hospitals in the East, and the
+sufferings of the poor wounded soldiers lying within these vast
+lazar-houses, had raised in the breast of all England a feeling of pity
+and horror. In this feeling the Queen most deeply participated. While her
+visit to the only hospital in this country in which the sufferers by the
+war were received, was a gratification to her own kindly sympathies, and
+most cheering and solacing to the inmates, it could not fail to convey to
+the thousands of sufferers in the East, and to the kinsmen and kinswomen
+whose hearts bled for them at home, that no heart was fuller of pity than
+that of her under whose flag they had fought and fallen.</p>
+
+<p>The whole of the wounded who were in a condition to leave their beds were
+drawn up in chairs on the lawn, each having written upon it a card
+containing the name and services of the occupant, the nature of his
+wounds, and where they were received. The Queen passed along the line,
+saying a few kind words to those sufferers who particularly attracted her
+notice, or to those whose services were specially commended. She visited
+every ward, except that containing fever cases. A few days after, the
+Queen reviewed some cavalry and artillery at Woolwich. After the review,
+she visited the hospital, and saw the wounded artillery-men who had
+returned from the Crimea. Nor were these isolated exhibitions of sentiment
+or emotion.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_179" id="Page_179">[Pg 179]</a></span> Upon every occasion during the continuance of the war, the
+Queen showed the most heartfelt sympathy with her brave soldiers; visited
+their hospitals and transport ships; received the wounded at her palace,
+and suggested and liberally assisted in the establishment of permanent
+means of relief for them and their families. A beautiful letter of the
+Queen, which was accidentally made public about this time, showed that in
+the privacy of domestic life Her Majesty never forgot these sufferers.
+Indeed, she complained that she was not kept sufficiently informed of the
+needs of those who had returned wounded to their country.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">DISTRIBUTION OF WAR MEDALS.</div>
+
+<p>It was equally the Queen&#8217;s duty and pleasure to reward conspicuous merit,
+as it was to do all that lay within the limits of her human and regal
+power to soothe the pangs of woe. One scene in which she discharged this
+high queenly function will never be forgotten by those who were privileged
+to witness it. The Queen determined to present with her own hand, to the
+officers of the Crimean army, and to a portion of the non-commissioned
+officers and privates, who had returned to their country disabled by their
+wounds, the medals which they had so dearly won. This act of grace and
+kindness deeply touched a sentiment that rested deep in the bosom of the
+nation, that had, indeed, there rested ever since&mdash;nay, long
+before&mdash;Elizabeth thrilled the heroic hearts of her people at Tilbury by
+saying, &#8220;I myself will be your general and judge, and the rewarder of
+every one of your victories in the field.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>The presentation took place on the 18th of May, 1855. A royal dais was
+erected in the centre of the parade of the Horse Guards, and the public
+offices which<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_180" id="Page_180">[Pg 180]</a></span> surround it were filled up with galleries for the royal
+family and nobility. Within an area enclosed by barriers, were the
+intended recipients of the decorations. Without was a dense mass of
+spectators. When the Queen had reached the ground, the Guards, who had
+hitherto been in line, were formed four deep, and through the intervals
+thus opened the Crimean heroes passed, and in a few moments the Queen
+stood face to face with them. Each then passed singly, receiving his medal
+at the hands of Her Majesty, who presented them with a grace and kindness
+which brought tears to many an eye long unused to their effusion. The
+first to receive his medal was the Duke of Cambridge, who was
+enthusiastically received. Then followed other General officers, then the
+staff, and then in order, without distinction of regimental rank, came
+cavalry, artillery, engineers, and the line.</p>
+
+<p>The sight was one of the most thrilling ever seen in our metropolis, or in
+our times. The gaunt and pallid forms, scarred features, and maimed and
+mutilated limbs, brought home to the heart of the least sympathetic the
+ravages of war, and the cost and guerdon of bravery. Many of those who
+hobbled upon crutches, or walked painfully with the assistance of a stick,
+wore upon their arms the emblems of mourning for some brother or near
+relative, now reposing by the waters of the Euxine or the Bosphorus. To
+each one of the wounded, whether officer or private, the Queen said some
+kind word or asked some kindly question of him. Many of the poor fellows
+were quite overcome by the tenderness of her compassion. Those officers
+whose wounds rendered them unable to walk, were wheeled past in Bath
+chairs. Sir<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_181" id="Page_181">[Pg 181]</a></span> Thomas Troubridge, who lost both feet at Inkerman, and who
+has since died, was the first of these. The Queen, leaning over his chair,
+handed him his medal with the most gracious gesture, and conferred upon
+him the post of aide-de-camp to herself. Captains Sayer and Currie, who
+were also wheeled past, received similar sympathy.</p>
+
+<p>After the soldiers, came 450 sailors and marines, under Admiral Dundas,
+who was the first to be decorated. The ceremony over, the non-commissioned
+officers and men of all services dined in the riding-school, where they
+were visited by the Queen, her husband, and their children.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">THE VOLUNTEER MOVEMENT.</div>
+
+<p>Closely and intimately allied with the intense warlike feeling which
+prevailed throughout the period which we have been traversing, was the
+rise, or rather the revival from our grandfathers&#8217; times, of the Volunteer
+movement, in the winter of 1858-9. This very notable phenomenon of modern
+days was entirely of spontaneous origin and popular outgrowth. At first
+the authorities looked but coldly upon it&mdash;wisely so, we think&mdash;until it
+evinced inherent elements of vitality and reality of purpose, and until it
+appeared that it was something more than a mere passing impulse. It was
+not until the 15th of May, 1859, that a circular from the Secretary for
+War gave to the movement official sanction, in the form of an
+authoritative permission by the Queen for the formation of volunteer
+corps. Ere a twelvemonth had elapsed, 70,000 men had enrolled themselves
+in England and Scotland; and before the end of the summer of 1860, that
+number had swollen into 170,000. In many other and more emphatic modes the
+Queen graciously accorded her own personal sanction and her warm and
+approving recognition to the <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_182" id="Page_182">[Pg 182]</a></span>movement. At a special lev&eacute;e, held in March,
+1859, all volunteer officers had the opportunity of being presented. At
+the first meeting at Wimbledon of the National Rifle Association, in July,
+1860, Her Majesty founded an annual prize, in value &pound;250. At the same
+meeting she fired the first shot, discharging a rifle, which had been
+carefully adjusted to a target 400 yards distant. The cheers of the
+assembled thousands welcomed the impact of the bullet within a quarter of
+an inch of the bull&#8217;s eye, and one of many Swiss gentlemen, who were
+present as competitors, felicitously remarked that Queen Victoria was now
+<i>la premi&egrave;re carabini&egrave;re de l&#8217;Angleterre</i>.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">THE HYDE PARK REVIEW.</div>
+
+<p>The 23rd of June in this year was a still greater day for the volunteer
+army, and for the country, for it proved how earnestly the riflemen had
+devoted themselves to training and to discipline. Her Majesty having
+expressed her desire to review the young force on that day, arrangements
+were made by the War Office, whereby every corps that had attained a
+certain excellence might be represented by its efficient members. The
+numbers and strength of the corps that presented themselves for inspection
+caused great surprise. Not only London and Westminster, and the densely
+populated metropolitan counties, sent ample contingents, but the energies
+of the railway companies were taxed to the utmost to bring up bodies of
+men from the west of England, the Midlands, Lancashire, Yorkshire, and
+East Anglia&mdash;even from distant Northumbria. The authorities ultimately
+found that they would have to make arrangements for placing 20,000 men in
+review order. The review became a national spectacle, a general holiday
+was arranged, and an immense assemblage, provincial as well as
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_183" id="Page_183">[Pg 183]</a></span>metropolitan, was assembled in Hyde Park. The Queen&#8217;s stand was placed in
+the centre of a long line of galleries erected for the accommodation of
+about 17,000 privileged spectators, its situation being indicated by the
+Royal Standard planted before it. At different hours of the morning, the
+provincial corps, some of which must have travelled all night, were landed
+at the railway termini&mdash;the Durham Artillery, which had travelled
+farthest, being the first to reach King&#8217;s Cross. The river steam-boats
+landed their freights at convenient piers: the suburban bodies mustered at
+their appointed stations. The whole operation of marching the respective
+battalions and brigades, amalgamated as agreed on, was performed with
+unerring precision and perfect ease, thanks to the intelligent zeal of the
+men and the clear heads of their officers. By two o&#8217;clock, 21,000, formed
+in one long line, extended completely across the park. The space of time
+which intervened between the successive arrivals of the corps and the
+commencement of the review, offered one of the most picturesque spectacles
+witnessed in our days.</p>
+
+<p>Exactly at four o&#8217;clock the Queen arrived on the ground in an open
+carriage. Accompanying her were the King of the Belgians, the Princess
+Alice, and Prince Arthur. The Prince Consort and the Prince of Wales were
+on horseback. The Queen was attended by a magnificent following of general
+officers, aides-de-camp, staff officers, foreign military men of
+distinction, and the Lords-Lieutenant of the counties which furnished
+contingents to the force on the ground. There were also in attendance on
+the Sovereign the Duke of Cambridge and Mr. Sidney Herbert, the official
+heads of the army.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_184" id="Page_184">[Pg 184]</a></span> Remarkable amongst the group was Field-Marshal Lord
+Combermere, who had counted no fewer than seventy years of military duty.
+As the cort&egrave;ge swept on to the ground the volunteers stood to arms, their
+bands playing the National Anthem. The scene now presented was in truth a
+magnificent one. On one side, from north to south, stood the thick lines
+of the volunteers, their somewhat sombre ranks varied by masses of dark
+uniforms, with here and there a mass of scarlet, the whole thrown into
+relief by the background of the trees of Kensington Gardens. From west to
+east, dense lines of people extended, many being raised head over head by
+the most precarious and illusory elevations. From north to south, at the
+eastern end of the park, and facing the line of volunteers, a glittering
+line of military uniforms of officers and the gay dresses of ladies who
+accompanied them gave a varied and rich fringe to the human masses of the
+<i>&eacute;lite</i> of the land who occupied the galleries above them. The green space
+so enclosed was dotted and animated by the bright scarlet, glittering
+cuirasses, snowy plumes, and jet-black steeds of the Life Guardsmen, who
+kept the ground.</p>
+
+<p>The Queen, followed by the whole of her brilliant Court, drove to the
+extreme left of the volunteer line, and thence slowly passed along the
+whole front to where the extreme right came close up to the lofty houses
+at Albert Gate. Then turning, she drew up on the open ground, the Royal
+Standard proudly waving above her. The bands of the Household Brigade
+being placed opposite her, the volunteers now began to defile past,
+between Her Majesty and the bands. The march was commenced by the mounted
+corps, few in number, but admirably equipped and with remarkably fine
+horses. The infantry<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_185" id="Page_185">[Pg 185]</a></span> were headed by the Artillery Company, to whom, as
+the oldest volunteer body existing, not only in England but in Europe, the
+priority has always been accorded. For an hour and a half corps after
+corps marched past, until the long succession was closed by a regiment
+from Cheshire. When the whole had passed, and all had returned to their
+original positions, the whole line advanced in columns of battalions, and,
+by signal, cheered Her Majesty with vociferous earnestness. After
+expressing her high satisfaction with what she had seen, the Queen left
+the ground about six o&#8217;clock. Before eight o&#8217;clock all the volunteers had
+been marched out of the park, and there remained within its gates only
+meagre remnants of the enormous crowd of spectators.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">THE REVIEW AT EDINBURGH.</div>
+
+<p>The opinions of competent authorities on the creditable manner in which
+this experimental review passed off were of the highest character. The
+Commander-in-Chief issued a general order, by command of the Queen, in
+which His Royal Highness spoke in the highest terms of the efficiency
+displayed by the various corps, and of Her Majesty&#8217;s appreciation of the
+loyalty and devotion exhibited by the volunteer movement. Later in the
+season the Queen, when on her customary autumnal route to Balmoral,
+reviewed in the Queen&#8217;s Park, at Edinburgh, the volunteers of her northern
+kingdom, to the number of 12,000.</p>
+
+
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p><p>&nbsp;</p>
+<hr style="width: 50%;" />
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_186" id="Page_186">[Pg 186]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXI" id="CHAPTER_XXI"></a>CHAPTER XXI.</h2>
+<p class="title">THE QUEEN IN HER HIGHLAND HOME.</p>
+
+<div class="note"><p class="hang">The Queen as an Author&mdash;&#8220;The Early Years of the Prince
+Consort&#8221;&mdash;&#8220;Leaves from the Journal of our Life in the Highlands&#8221;&mdash;Love
+for Children of all Ranks&mdash;Mountain Ascents on Pony-back&mdash;In Fingal&#8217;s
+Cave&mdash;&#8220;The Queen&#8217;s Luck&#8221;&mdash;Salmon-spearing, and a Catastrophe attending
+it&mdash;Erection of a Memorial Cairn&mdash;Freedom of Intercourse with Humble
+Highlanders&mdash;Visits to Cottagers&mdash;&#8220;Mrs. Albert&#8221;&mdash;Travelling
+Incognito&mdash;Highland Dinners&mdash;&#8220;A Wedding-Party frae Aberdeen&#8221;&mdash;A
+Disguise Detected.</p></div>
+
+
+<p>Early in January of the year 1868, Queen Victoria added her name to the
+distinguished roll of Royal authors. In the year preceding, there had been
+published a work entitled, &#8220;The Early Years of the Prince Consort,&#8221; in
+which the life of her revered and lamented husband is traced from its
+beginning, down to the first period of their common wedded life. On the
+title-page of this work appears the name, as author, of General the
+Honourable Charles Grey, a gentleman who accompanied the Prince in a tour
+to Italy before his marriage, and who has ever since remained attached, in
+high capacities, to the Royal Household. This book, to which we have been
+indebted for important materials reproduced by us at certain of the
+earlier stages of our narrative, was published with the sanction of Her
+Majesty, and its compiler received from his Royal Mistress most, if not
+all, of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_187" id="Page_187">[Pg 187]</a></span> the materials which he very tastefully combined. But the Queen
+did not appear in it as author <i>in propri&acirc; person&acirc;</i>, save in the instance
+of certain occasional notes and addenda to which her imprint is attached.
+The work published in 1868, on the other hand, &#8220;Leaves from the Journal of
+Our Life in the Highlands,&#8221; is entirely, save a brief editorial
+introduction, from the Queen&#8217;s pen. It is precisely, as its name imports,
+a series of extracts from a journal kept from day to day, and extended
+from Her Majesty&#8217;s earliest married days far into those of her widowhood.
+Special passages are, in addition, given from similar diaries, which
+recorded yacht trips to the beautiful estuary of the Tamar, to the Duchy
+of Cornwall, and to the Channel Islands. There is also furnished a very
+sparkling and vivacious record of the Queen&#8217;s first visit to Ireland, in
+1849, which will be found duly recorded by us in a previous chapter.</p>
+
+<p>Nothing charms more in these pages than the love displayed for all young
+people&mdash;for the writer&#8217;s own sons and daughters, who are described by
+their home pet names; &#8220;Vicky,&#8221; and &#8220;Bertie,&#8221; standing, for example, for
+Victoria and Albert&mdash;for the infant child of a ducal entertainer, depicted
+as &#8220;a dear, white, fat, fair little fellow,&#8221; and &#8220;such a merry,
+independent little child&#8221;&mdash;or for the children of humble cottagers at
+Balmoral, for &#8220;Mary Symons and Lizzie Stuart dancing so nicely; the latter
+with her hair all hanging down.&#8221; When the Queen and Prince and the
+children land at Dundee, what charms the fond young mother most is, that
+&#8220;Vicky&#8221; behaves like a grown-up person, and is &#8220;not put out, nor
+frightened, nor nervous.&#8221; And when a little grandchild of Lord Camperdown
+presented the youthful Princess Royal with a<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_188" id="Page_188">[Pg 188]</a></span> nosegay, the reflection that
+rose to the mother&#8217;s mind was, that she could hardly believe that she was
+travelling as a wife and a mother; for it seemed but as yesterday that
+she, as a child, in the tours taken with <i>her</i> mother through England,
+used to receive similar childish tokens. She was at once put in mind of
+the time when <i>she</i> had been &#8220;the little Princess.&#8221;</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">HAPPY DAYS IN THE HIGHLANDS.</div>
+
+<p>Accounts of rides on shaggy Highland ponies to the tops of mountains, and
+more lengthened <i>incognito</i> excursions in whatever vehicles could be
+procured at third-rate country inns, are thickly scattered over the pages
+of the &#8220;Journal.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>The Western Islands, as well as the Highlands, were at least on one
+occasion visited. Anchoring close by wondrous Staffa, the Queen
+disembarked, and was rowed in a barge into Fingal&#8217;s Cave. This was the
+first time that the British standard, with a Queen of Great Britain and
+her husband and children, had ever entered the portals of this wondrous
+freak of nature, and the Gaelic oarsmen gave three cheers, the echoes of
+which from the inmost recesses of the cave were most impressive.</p>
+
+<p>On another mountain ramble, the Queen seated herself calmly, the youthful
+Prince of Wales lying among the heather by her side, while Prince Albert
+went to stalk a deer. He brought down a &#8220;royal,&#8221; that is, a stag which has
+over a certain number of &#8220;tines&#8221; to his horns; on which the somewhat
+superstitious Highland keeper at once said that &#8220;it was Her Majesty&#8217;s
+coming out that had brought the good luck.&#8221; The Highlanders all believed
+that the Queen had &#8220;a lucky foot.&#8221;</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">SALMON-SPEARING IN SCOTLAND.</div>
+
+<p>Amongst other Highland sports which curiosity and great love of adventure
+led her to witness, was salmon<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_189" id="Page_189">[Pg 189]</a></span> spearing, or &#8220;leistering.&#8221; While the
+keepers were beating the waters, the Highland gentlemen wading in the
+stream, and Prince Albert watching, spear in hand, on a boulder, the Queen
+watched from the brink this, the most exciting of all river sports, save,
+perhaps, otter hunting. Suddenly she was alarmed, and with most abundant
+cause. Two of the men imprudently went into a very deep pool. One of them
+could not swim, and he sank to the bottom. There was a cry for help, and a
+general rush by the Prince and others to the spot. The Queen was much
+frightened, and grasped the arm of the minister in attendance, Lord
+Carlisle, in great agony. But Dr. Robertson, the Queen&#8217;s &#8220;factor,&#8221; or
+agent over the Balmoral estate, swam in and got the too venturesome Gael
+out safely. The Queen, after this &#8220;horrid moment,&#8221; had the satisfaction of
+seeing eight salmon speared or netted; and was further amused by a curious
+piece of Highland courtesy&mdash;her own &#8220;men&#8221; carrying all the &#8220;men&#8221; of
+Colonel Forbes, a neighbour, dry shod on their backs through the water.
+They had come to see the sport, and the Queen&#8217;s gillies at once insisted
+on their conveying them to the most favourable side of the stream.</p>
+
+<p>A great day was that on which a cairn was erected on one of the heights
+overlooking Balmoral to celebrate the building of the new castle, which
+the Queen raised in lieu of the mansion which had stood on the estate when
+she was its tenant, and ere by its purchase she entered into proprietary
+possession. The morning was a fine one, and at eleven o&#8217;clock the Royal
+party started for the ascent of Craig Cowan, where already nearly all the
+dependants were assembled. The Royal children, and all the ladies and
+gentlemen, accompanied the Queen and Prince. All<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_190" id="Page_190">[Pg 190]</a></span> the children of the
+Queen&#8217;s neighbouring tenants, and of her servants, were already on the
+top. The Queen laid the first stone, and the Prince the second, and then
+their children according to their ages. Then all the ladies and gentlemen
+of the Court placed a stone each. The pipers played the while, and whisky
+was served out to every one. It took an hour to build the cairn, and
+dancing and merry revels went on without intermission until its
+completion; the very oldest of the women danced, and the youngsters were
+wild with glee. An old favourite dog sat reflectively contemplating a
+scene to which his veteran gravity prevented his indulging in any
+responsive and sympathetic gambols. At last when the cairn, having
+attained to the respectable height of some eight feet, was pronounced all
+but complete, the Prince climbed to its summit and placed the last stone,
+and three hearty cheers announced to the dwellers below the completion of
+the enterprise and edifice. The Queen concludes her chronicle of its
+erection in these words:&mdash;&#8220;It was a gay, pretty, and touching sight, and I
+felt almost inclined to cry. The view was so beautiful over the dear
+hills, the day so fine, the whole so <i>gem&uuml;thlich</i>. May God bless this
+place, and allow us yet to see it and enjoy it many a long year!&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>The Queen and her family have always made it a practice to enter into the
+freest and most unrestrained conversation with the dignified, independent,
+courteous, and truly well-bred Highlanders. As she rode along a hill-side
+one day, &#8220;Alice and Bertie&#8221; accompanying her on foot, Prince Albert was
+conversing very gaily with one of the gillies, upon which the one who led
+the Queen&#8217;s pony observed, &#8220;It&#8217;s very pleasant to walk with<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_191" id="Page_191">[Pg 191]</a></span> a person who
+is always content.&#8221; And when the Queen, following up her attendant&#8217;s
+remark, said that he was never cross after bad sport, the gillie rejoined,
+&#8220;Every one on the estate says there never was so kind a master; our only
+wish is to give satisfaction.&#8221; The Queen replied that that wish they
+certainly succeeded in fulfilling. And at a future date the Queen thus
+annotated that passage in her journal from which we have been
+borrowing:&mdash;&#8220;We were always in the habit of conversing with the
+Highlanders, with whom we came so much in contact in the Highlands. The
+Prince highly appreciated the good breeding, simplicity, and intelligence
+which makes it so pleasant, and even instructive, to talk to them.&#8221;</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">THE QUEEN AND SCOTTISH COTTAGERS.</div>
+
+<p>The Queen takes especial pleasure in visiting the old women&#8217;s cottages, by
+some of whom, we have been told, she is not unfrequently addressed&mdash;or at
+least was so, when she was yet new to the north and the northerners new to
+her&mdash;as &#8220;Mrs. Albert.&#8221; One old dame of eighty-six, erect and dignified as
+she sat at her spinning-wheel, received personally from Her Majesty the
+gift of a warm flannel petticoat. This was her pious and eloquent form of
+thanks: &#8220;May the Lord ever attend you and yours, here and hereafter, and
+may the Lord be a guide to ye, and keep ye from all harm!&#8221; Another aged
+pensioner, who was quite friendly, and shook hands with all her party of
+visitors, chose this form of benediction: &#8220;May the Lord attend you with
+mirth and with joy; may He ever be with you in this world, and when ye
+leave it!&#8221;</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">THE QUEEN IN DISGUISE.</div>
+
+<p>The Queen&#8217;s mode of travelling as an <i>incognita</i> has never gone beyond a
+journey of three or four days&#8217; duration to some Highland district, in
+which the very amplitude of her retinue, even when abridged of its<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_192" id="Page_192">[Pg 192]</a></span> usual
+proportions, prevented her passing otherwise than as a person of
+distinction, but in which it was possible to keep her <i>queenly</i> rank
+undiscovered. Sometimes the mask was successfully worn to the end of the
+trip, to the great enjoyment of the Queen, her &#8220;gentle&#8221; attendants, and
+her servants. On one or two occasions, recognitions, unfortunate for the
+success of the very innocent plot, were made by persons to whom the
+Queen&#8217;s face was familiar. On one of these trips, two shabby vehicles
+contained the whole party, which consisted of the Royal pair, Sir George
+Grey, Lady Churchill, and a small complement of servants. It had been
+arranged that the tourists should pass as Lord and Lady Churchill (the
+Queen and Prince assuming these <i>r&ocirc;les</i>), Lady Churchill becoming Miss
+Spencer, and Sir George Grey becoming &#8220;Dr.&#8221; Grey. Once or twice the
+servants, who were of necessity in the plot, forgot their instructions,
+and blurted out &#8220;your Majesty,&#8221; and &#8220;your Royal Highness;&#8221; but, luckily,
+no one heard the <i>faux pas</i>. After a very long and fatiguing drive through
+a district remarkably denuded of habitations, they arrived, at nightfall,
+at an inn of very small pretensions. They alighted, Sir George Grey and
+Lady Churchill, faithful to the necessities of the situation, giving no
+indication, by any deference of manner, of the quality of their
+fellow-travellers. Being ushered into small but tidy sleeping and dressing
+apartments, they had their travel-stains removed, and sat down to such a
+dinner as the resources of the establishment afforded. The two gillies in
+attendance were to have waited at table, but their bashfulness prevented
+their undertaking duties so entirely out of their line; so a damsel in
+ringlets, attached to the inn,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_193" id="Page_193">[Pg 193]</a></span> performed the necessary duties. The repast
+consisted of a very delicate and delicious Scottish soup, known as
+&#8220;hodge-podge&#8221;&mdash;which, to be tasted to perfection, however, must be
+partaken of in early summer, when vegetables (of many kinds of which it is
+composed) are young and tender&mdash;mutton broth, fowls, &#8220;good&#8221; roast lamb,
+and &#8220;very good&#8221; potatoes. A bottle of wine the travellers had taken care
+to bring with them. They were less fortunate on the occasion of another
+similar trip, when all that could be procured was a couple of remarkably
+small and lean fowls, the remnants of which were sent down to the
+servants, with appetites rendered voracious by the keen mountain air. On
+this latter trip, a commercial traveller was much annoyed at his exclusion
+from the &#8220;commercial room,&#8221; which was reserved for the servants. In answer
+to his remonstrance, the landlady pacified him by stating that the guests,
+who occupied her whole house, were &#8220;a wedding-party frae Aberdeen.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>When the cavalcade of the two &#8220;shabby vehicles&#8221; drove away, on the next
+morning, it was evident that &#8220;the murder was out,&#8221; and that the inmates of
+the inn had discovered the quality of their guests, and communicated it to
+the scanty population of the village; for &#8220;all the people were in the
+street, and the landlady waved a pocket-handkerchief, and the ringletted
+maid a flag, from the window.&#8221;</p>
+
+
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p><p>&nbsp;</p>
+<hr style="width: 50%;" />
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_194" id="Page_194">[Pg 194]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXII" id="CHAPTER_XXII"></a>CHAPTER XXII.</h2>
+<p class="title">THE WIDOWED QUEEN.</p>
+
+<div class="note"><p class="hang">Unbroken Happiness of the Queen&#8217;s Life up to 1861&mdash;Death of the
+Duchess of Kent&mdash;The Prince Consort slightly Ailing&mdash;Catches Cold at
+Cambridge and Eton&mdash;The Malady becomes Serious&mdash;Public Alarm&mdash;Rapid
+Sinking, and Death&mdash;Sorrow of the People&mdash;The Queen&#8217;s
+Fortitude&mdash;Avoidance of Court Display&mdash;Good Deeds&mdash;Sympathy with all
+Benevolent Actions&mdash;Letter of Condolence to the Widow of President
+Lincoln&mdash;The Albert Medal&mdash;Conclusion.</p></div>
+
+
+<p>Until 1861 the Queen had never known bereavement in the circle of her own
+immediate family. Nine children had been born to her, and, although it is
+understood that certain of her younger offspring do not possess that
+robustness of health which their elder brothers and sisters enjoy, yet not
+one had been snatched from their loving parents by the hand of the Great
+Destroyer. Early in 1861 came the first pang of bereavement. The Duchess
+of Kent, ripe in years, one of the best of mothers and one of the best of
+grandmothers, a lady to whose memory all Britons now and hereafter owe an
+incalculable debt of gratitude, passed peacefully away with her
+descendants gathered around her bedside.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">LAST DAYS OF PRINCE ALBERT.</div>
+
+<p>When the Royal Family returned from Balmoral in October, it was observed
+that the Prince Consort was not in his usual health and vigour, but he had
+no pronounced ailment, and nothing approaching to serious alarm was for
+many weeks apprehended. In the course of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_195" id="Page_195">[Pg 195]</a></span> the succeeding month he went to
+Cambridge, to visit the Prince of Wales, who was a student at that
+University, as he had previously been for a short time at Oxford. He went
+out shooting while there, got wet, and, as the Duke of Kent had done, was
+so imprudent as to sit down without removing his wet clothes.
+Nevertheless, on his return to Windsor, he pursued his usual daily
+avocations. About the beginning of December he appeared in public with the
+Queen, and reviewed the volunteer corps raised among the Eton boys. The
+rain fell fast, and the Prince was seized on the review ground with acute
+pains in the back. Feverish symptoms supervened, and the doctors ordered
+confinement to his room. Still no alarm was entertained, and it was
+believed that he suffered only from a passing malady. The general public
+knew nothing of the ailment until some solicitude was caused by a
+bulletin, which appeared in the <i>Court Circular</i> of the 8th December:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>His Royal Highness the Prince Consort has been confined to his
+apartments for the past week, suffering from a feverish cold, with
+pains in his limbs. Within the last few days the feverish symptoms
+have rather increased, and are likely to continue for some time
+longer, but there are no unfavourable symptoms. The party which had
+been invited by Her Majesty&#8217;s command to assemble at Windsor Castle on
+Monday has been countermanded.</p></div>
+
+<p>Not until the 13th was any bulletin issued which caused real anxiety and
+alarm. On the day following, the morning papers contained the ominous
+announcement that he had &#8220;passed a restless night, and the symptoms had
+assumed an unfavourable character during the day.&#8221; The <i>Times</i>, in a
+leading article, while hoping for the best, startled all by its statement
+that &#8220;the fever which has attacked him<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_196" id="Page_196">[Pg 196]</a></span> is a weakening and wearying
+malady.&#8221; On the morning of Saturday there was a favourable turn, but which
+was soon followed by a most serious relapse. About four p.m. the fever
+assumed a malignant typhoid type, and he began to sink with such rapidity
+that all stimulants failed to check the quick access of weakness. At nine
+o&#8217;clock a telegram was received in the City that the Prince was dying
+fast, and at a few minutes before eleven all was over. &#8220;On Saturday night
+last,&#8221; said one of the daily journals of the succeeding Monday, &#8220;at an
+hour when the shops in the metropolis had hardly closed, when the theatres
+were delighting thousands of pleasure-seekers, when the markets were
+thronged with humble buyers seeking to provide for their Sunday
+requirements, when the foot-passengers yet lingered in the half-emptied
+streets, allured by the soft air of a calm, clear evening, a family in
+which the whole interest of this great nation is centred were assembled,
+less than five-and-twenty miles away, in the Royal residence at Windsor,
+in the deepest affliction around the death-bed of a beloved husband and
+father. In the prime of life, without&mdash;so to speak&mdash;a longer warning than
+that of forty-eight hours, Prince Albert, the Consort of our Queen, the
+parent of our future Monarchs, has been stricken down by a short but
+malignant disorder.&#8221; Shortly after midnight, the great bell of St. Paul&#8217;s,
+which is never tolled except upon the death of a member of the Royal
+Family, boomed the fatal tidings over a district extending, in the
+quietude of the early Sabbath morn, for miles around the metropolis.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">DEATH OF PRINCE ALBERT.</div>
+
+<p>The Queen, the Princess Alice, and the Prince of Wales, who had been
+hastily summoned from Cambridge, sat with the dying good man until the
+last. After the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_197" id="Page_197">[Pg 197]</a></span> closing scene the Queen supported herself nobly, and
+after a short burst of uncontrollable grief, she is said to have gathered
+her children around her, and addressed them in the most solemn and
+affectionate terms. &#8220;She declared to her family that, though she felt
+crushed by the loss of one who had been her companion through life, she
+knew how much was expected of her, and she accordingly called on her
+children to give her their assistance, in order that she might do her duty
+to them and the country.&#8221; The Duke of Cambridge and many gentlemen
+connected with the Court, with six of the Royal children, were present at
+the Prince&#8217;s death. In answer to some one of those present who tenderly
+offered condolence, the Queen is reported to have said: &#8220;I suppose I must
+not fret too much, for many poor women have to go through the same trial.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>The sad news became generally known in the metropolis and in the great
+cities of the empire early on Sunday. Unusually large congregations filled
+the churches and chapels at morning service. &#8220;There was a solemn eloquence
+in the subdued but distinctly perceptible sensation which crept over the
+congregations in the principal churches when, in the prayer for the Royal
+family, the Prince Consort&#8217;s name was omitted. It was well remarked, if
+ever the phrase was permissible, it might then be truly said that the name
+of the departed Prince was truly conspicuous by its absence, for never was
+the gap that this event has made in our national life, as well as in the
+domestic happiness of the Palace, more vividly realised than when the name
+that has mingled so familiarly in our prayers for the last twenty years
+was, for the first time, left out of our public devotions.&#8221; Many<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_198" id="Page_198">[Pg 198]</a></span>
+thousands of mute pious petitions were specially addressed to Heaven for
+the bereaved widow and orphans when the prayer of the Litany for &#8220;all who
+are desolate and oppressed&#8221; was uttered, and in the chapels of
+Nonconformists the extemporaneous prayers of the ministers gave articulate
+expression to the heartfelt orisons of the silent worshippers. Every one
+thought of and felt for the Queen, and during the week intervening between
+the death and the funeral, the question on every one&#8217;s lips in all places
+of resort, and where men and women congregated, was, &#8220;How will the Queen
+bear it?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Prince Albert sleeps the long sleep at Frogmore, to which his mortal
+remains were borne reverently, and without ostentation, as he himself
+would have wished. The inscription on his coffin ran thus:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p class="center"><span class="smcap">depositum<br />
+Illustrissimi et Celsissimi Alberti,<br />
+principis consortis,<br />
+ducis saxoni&aelig;,<br />
+de saxe-coburg et gotha principis,<br />
+nobilissimi ordinis periscelidis equitis,<br />
+augustissim&aelig; et potentissim&aelig; victori&aelig; regin&aelig;,<br />
+conjugis percarissimi,<br />
+obiit die decimo quarto decembris, mdccclxi.<br />
+anno &aelig;tatis su&aelig; xliii.</span></p>
+
+<p class="note">[Here lies the most illustrious and exalted Albert, Prince Consort,
+Duke of Saxony, Prince of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, Knight of the Most
+Noble Order of the Garter, the most beloved husband of the most august
+and potent Queen Victoria. He died on the fourteenth day of December,
+1861, in the forty-third year of his age.]</p>
+
+<p>Thus died and was buried a great and a good man, one of the most useful
+men of his age, one to whom England owes much.</p>
+
+<p class="poem"><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_199" id="Page_199">[Pg 199]</a></span>
+&#8220;For that he loved our Queen,<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">And, for her sake, the people of her love,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Few and far distant names shall rank above</span><br />
+His own, where England&#8217;s cherish&#8217;d names are seen.&#8221;</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote">THE QUEEN IN HER WIDOWHOOD.</div>
+
+<p>The Queen has ever since her great bereavement most constantly and piously
+revered the Prince&#8217;s memory. Her reverence has taken the practical form of
+the deepest sympathy with the woes and sorrows of the poorest and humblest
+of her subjects. She has eschewed the pomp and ceremony of State, and
+deliberately set herself to discover and soothe sorrow, and to recognise
+all good deeds of the same character performed by others. When the noble
+Peabody bestowed his princely act of munificence on the poor of London, no
+recognition was made of his generosity more signal than that made by the
+Queen. She has been among the first to help by loving words and by
+practical aid the sufferers by any great national calamity&mdash;a Lancashire
+famine, a shipwreck or railway accident, a colliery explosion, a
+catastrophe caused by mad and futile sedition. Ready and sympathetic
+condolence has especially flowed from her to those bereaved like herself,
+and when President Lincoln perished at his post, the Queen sent to his
+widow a long letter which her son described as &#8220;the outgushing of a
+woman&#8217;s heartfelt sympathy,&#8221; and which, with rare and commendable good
+taste, has never been exposed to the public eye. Most fitly has she
+specially commemorated her husband&#8217;s memory by the institution of a fit
+companion and complement to the Victoria Cross, the &#8220;Albert Medal,&#8221; which
+is bestowed on brave men who save lives from the &#8220;Peril of the Sea or
+Shipwreck.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Many consolations have been vouchsafed by Heaven<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_200" id="Page_200">[Pg 200]</a></span> to the widowed Queen.
+Since she lost her great stay and support her realm has for the most part
+been prosperous and contented. Though environed by many troubles, and
+though the clang of battle has shaken the world, the dove of peace has
+benignantly hovered o&#8217;er Britain. Much advance has been made in those
+fields of social, moral, political, and educational improvement which were
+so dear to Albert&#8217;s heart, as they have always been to her own. And
+shortly before the period when these pages are first given to the public,
+the political progress of the nation has received a great stimulus, such
+as is given in a people&#8217;s history only at rare and long intervals. Her
+children grow up from youth to maturity, and from maturity to maternity
+and paternity, without a slur upon their fair names, and are, with those
+to whom the elder of them have united themselves in wedlock, all that a
+proud mother&#8217;s heart could wish. God has stricken her; but He has proved
+also an Infinite Healer and Solacer. Ours be it to add to the ordinary
+motives of patriotism, those more tender and touching influences which
+arise from the recollection that our Queen is now, as said that Queen of
+England whose subjects were Shakespeare and Bacon, Spenser and
+Sidney&mdash;&#8220;Married to her People.&#8221;</p>
+
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p class="center">THE END.</p>
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p class="center">CASSELL, PETTER, AND GALPIN, BELLE SAUVAGE WORKS, LONDON, E.C.</p>
+
+
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p><p>&nbsp;</p>
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diff --git a/39603.txt b/39603.txt
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--- /dev/null
+++ b/39603.txt
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+The Project Gutenberg eBook, The Public Life of Queen Victoria, by John
+McGilchrist
+
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+
+
+
+Title: The Public Life of Queen Victoria
+
+
+Author: John McGilchrist
+
+
+
+Release Date: May 3, 2012  [eBook #39603]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII)
+
+
+***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE PUBLIC LIFE OF QUEEN
+VICTORIA***
+
+
+E-text prepared by Charlene Taylor and the Online Distributed Proofreading
+Team (http://www.pgdp.net) from page images generously made available by
+Internet Archive/American Libraries
+(http://www.archive.org/details/americana)
+
+
+
+Note: Images of the original pages are available through
+      Internet Archive/American Libraries. See
+      http://archive.org/details/publiclifeofquee00mcgi
+
+
+
+
+
+THE PUBLIC LIFE OF QUEEN VICTORIA.
+
+by
+
+JOHN MCGILCHRIST.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+Felt and Dillingham,
+455, Broome Street, New York.
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS.
+                                                                     PAGE
+
+  CHAPTER I.
+
+  ANCESTRY.
+
+    Frederick the Wise, Elector of Saxony, the Protector of
+    Luther--Staunch Protestantism of the Queen's Saxon
+    Forefathers--House of Saxe-Coburg--A Saxon Desperado of the
+    Middle Ages--A Fighting Hero of the Eighteenth Century--The
+    Queen's Grandmother a Woman of Extraordinary Excellence--
+    Great Alliances in the Marriages of her Uncles and Aunts             1
+
+
+  CHAPTER II.
+
+  THE GREATEST OF THE MODERN COBURGS.
+
+    Romantic Career of Prince Leopold of Saxe-Coburg, the Queen's
+    Uncle--His Continuous, Kind, and Fatherly Care of his
+    Orphaned Niece--The Duchy of Coburg held by Napoleon--
+    Sufferings of the Ducal Family--A Temptation resisted--The
+    Tide turned--Leopold's Popularity in England--Betrothal and
+    Marriage to the Princess Charlotte of Wales                          8
+
+
+  CHAPTER III.
+
+  PARENTAGE AND BIRTH OF QUEEN VICTORIA.
+
+    How the Princess Victoria came to be Heiress Presumptive to
+    the Throne--Death of the Princess Charlotte--Marriages of the
+    Royal Dukes--Of the Duke of Kent--Birth of the Princess
+    Alexandrina Victoria--Prediction of George IV.--Death of the
+    Duke of Kent--His Character--His Liberal Opinions--Public
+    Condolence with the Widow and Orphan--Early Life of the
+    Duchess of Kent                                                     14
+
+
+  CHAPTER IV.
+
+  FIRST YEARS OF CHILDHOOD.
+
+    Old Memories of Kensington Palace--Enlargements of the
+    Structure by William III., Anne, Queen Caroline, and the Duke
+    of Sussex--Maids of Honour--Rank and Beauty in the Gardens--
+    Wilberforce and the Infant Princess--Victoria at Ramsgate--A
+    Picture of Victoria when Five Years Old--Her Physical
+    Training--Popularity as a Child--Her Youthful Charities--A
+    Narrow Escape from Death--Early Development of Quick
+    Intelligence--Anecdotes--Love of Nature--Proneness to
+    Self-Will--But Counterbalanced by Candour--Waggishness--A
+    Portrait of the Child-Princess by Leigh Hunt                        23
+
+
+  CHAPTER V.
+
+  EDUCATION OF THE PRINCESS VICTORIA.
+
+    Additional Grant by Parliament for the Maintenance and
+    Education of the Princess--Wise Lessons learned at her
+    Mother's Knee--A Visit to George IV. at Windsor--Assiduous
+    Pursuit of Knowledge--Accession of William IV.--Victoria
+    becomes next in Succession to the Crown--Regency Bill--
+    Satisfaction of the Good Grandmother at Coburg--Her Death--
+    Joy of Victoria at the Elevation of her Uncle to the Belgian
+    Throne--Parliamentary Inquiry into the Progress of her
+    Education--Satisfactory Report in Response--Presented at
+    Court--Great Ball on her Twelfth Birthday at St. James's
+    Palace--Court Scandal and Baseless Rumours--The Duchess of
+    Northumberland appointed Governess--The Princess and the
+    Poet Southey                                                        37
+
+
+  CHAPTER VI.
+
+  THE PRINCESS IN HER TEENS.
+
+    Visits paid to many parts of England--Love of Cathedrals and
+    Church Music--Trip to North Wales and the Midland Counties--
+    Visit to a Cotton Mill--To Oxford--Gala Day at Southampton--
+    Interview with the Young Queen of Portugal--Confirmation of
+    the Princess--Tour to the North--York Musical Festival--At
+    Ramsgate with the King of the Belgians--A Noble Deed at
+    Tunbridge Wells                                                     47
+
+
+  CHAPTER VII.
+
+  EARLY DAYS OF PRINCE ALBERT.
+
+    Birth--Melancholy Story of his Mother--Brought up under the
+    Care of his Two Excellent Grandmothers--His Winning Ways as
+    a Child--His Tutor, Florschuetz--The Brothers, Ernest and
+    Albert--Visit to Brussels, and its Beneficial Effects--Hard
+    Study--Tour through Germany, &c.--First Visit to England,
+    and Meeting with Victoria--Studies at Brussels--Enters the
+    University of Bonn--Tour to Switzerland and Italy--Public
+    Announcement of Betrothal--Leaves Coburg and Gotha for his
+    Marriage                                                            52
+
+
+  CHAPTER VIII.
+
+  THE PRINCESS VICTORIA BECOMES QUEEN REGNANT.
+
+    First Meeting of the Princess Victoria and Prince Albert--
+    Coming of Age--Festivities on the Occasion--Death of William
+    IV., and Accession of Victoria--The Queen holds her First
+    Privy Council--Her Address--Proclamation as Queen at St.
+    James's Palace--Beautiful Traits of Character displayed by
+    the Queen--Stirring and Gorgeous Scene--Delight of the
+    People at the Queen's Accession                                     61
+
+
+  CHAPTER IX.
+
+  THE MAIDEN QUEEN.
+
+    Removal to Buckingham Palace--First Levee--Dissolves
+    Parliament--Beauty of her Elocution--Splendid Reception by
+    the City of London--Settlement of the Queen's Income--Her
+    Daily Life--Her Admirable Knowledge of, and Devotion to, the
+    Business of the State--Reverence for the Lord's Day                 69
+
+
+  CHAPTER X.
+
+  THE QUEEN CROWNED.
+
+    Novel Features in the Coronation--Its Cost--Large Amount of
+    Money Circulated--Splendour of the Procession--Enormous
+    Crowds--The Scene within the Abbey--Arrival of the Queen--
+    The Regalia and Sacred Vessels--Costume of the Queen--
+    Astonishment of the Turkish Ambassador at the Scene--The
+    Coronation Ceremony--The Queen's Oath--The Anointing--The
+    Crown placed on her Head--The Homage--An Aged Peer--The
+    Queen's Crown--The Illuminations and General Festivities--
+    Fair in Hyde Park--The Duke of Wellington and Marshal Soult
+    at the Guildhall                                                    75
+
+
+  CHAPTER XI.
+
+  THE BEDCHAMBER PLOT.
+
+    Resignation of Lord Melbourne's Cabinet--Sir Robert Peel
+    sent for--Fails to form a Cabinet--His Explanation--The
+    Queen refuses to Dismiss her Ladies of the Bedchamber--
+    Supported by her late Ministers--Sir Robert Peel's
+    Objections--The Queen will not give way--The Whigs recalled
+    to Power--Public Opinion on the Dispute--The Whig Ministers
+    blamed, and the Queen exculpated                                    84
+
+
+  CHAPTER XII.
+
+  COURTSHIP AND BETROTHAL.
+
+    Desire of the Coburg Relatives for a Marriage between
+    Victoria and Albert--Favourable Impressions mutually made by
+    Victoria and Albert--Prince Albert's Letter on the Queen's
+    Accession--Opposition of King William IV. to the Marriage--
+    Correspondence between the Cousins--King Leopold Urges on
+    the Marriage--The Queen's Reluctance to become Betrothed--
+    Her subsequent Regret at this--The Prince craves a definite
+    Determination--His Second Visit to England--Betrothed at
+    Last--Returns to Germany to say Farewell                            91
+
+
+  CHAPTER XIII.
+
+  THE QUEEN WEDDED.
+
+    Announcement of the Intended Marriage to the Privy Council
+    and Parliament--Parliamentary Settlement of the Prince's
+    Rank, &c.--Annoying Circumstances--The Prince's
+    Protestantism--His Income--Arrival of the Bridegroom--
+    Receives a National Welcome--The Wedding--Honeymoon Spent at
+    Windsor                                                            100
+
+
+  CHAPTER XIV.
+
+  EARLY YEARS OF MARRIED LIFE.
+
+    Difficulties and Delicacy of Prince Albert's Position--Early
+    Married Life--Studies continued--Attempts on the Queen's
+    Life--Courage of the Queen--Birth of the Princess Royal--
+    Parting from the Whig Ladies of the Bedchamber--Dark Days
+    for England--Birth of the Prince of Wales--The Queen
+    Described by M. Guizot--A Dinner at Buckingham Palace--State
+    Dinner at Windsor                                                  110
+
+
+  CHAPTER XV.
+
+  THE QUEEN IN SCOTLAND.
+
+    Christening of the Prince of Wales--Manufacturing Distress--
+    The Queen's Efforts to alleviate it--Assesses Herself to the
+    Income Tax--Resolves to Visit Scotland--Embarks at Woolwich--
+    Beacon Fires in the Firth of Forth--Landing on Scottish
+    Soil--A Disappointment--Formal Entry into Edinburgh--Richness
+    of Historical and Ancestral Associations--The Queen on the
+    Castle Rock--A Highland Welcome--Departure from Scotland           126
+
+
+  CHAPTER XVI.
+
+  WHAT ENGLAND OWES TO PRINCE ALBERT.
+
+    The Prince's Study of our Laws and Constitution--Two
+    Misconceptions Outlived--His Versatility--His First Speech
+    an Anti-Slavery one--His Appreciation and Judicious Criticism
+    of Art--Scientific Side of his Mind--As an Agriculturist           141
+
+
+  CHAPTER XVII.
+
+  FOREIGN TRAVEL AND HOME VISITS.
+
+    Visit to King Louis Philippe at Eu--A Loyal Corporation--
+    Splendid Reception of the Queen in France--Anecdote of the
+    Queen's Regard for Prince Albert--Visit of the Czar
+    Nicholas--Home Life in Scotland--Visit to Germany--
+    Illuminations of the Rhine--A Rural Fete at Coburg                 149
+
+
+  CHAPTER XVIII.
+
+  THE QUEEN IN IRELAND.
+
+    First Visit to Ireland--Rapturous Reception at Cork--
+    Queenstown so denominated--Enthusiasm at Dublin--Its
+    Graceful Recognition by the Queen--Visit to the Dublin
+    Exhibition--Encouragement of Native Industry--Visit to the
+    Lakes of Killarney--The Whirligig of Time                          157
+
+
+  CHAPTER XIX.
+
+  THE WORLD'S CONGRESS OF INDUSTRY.
+
+    Prince Albert the Inaugurator of International Exhibitions--
+    Proposes, Unsuccessfully, his Scheme to the Government--To
+    the Society of Arts, Successfully--First Steps towards
+    Realisation--Objections to be Met--Perseverance of the
+    Prince--The Royal Commission--The Prince's Speech at York--
+    The Opening Ceremony--The Royal Procession                         164
+
+
+  CHAPTER XX.
+
+  THE WAR CLOUD.
+
+    Bright Hopes of Peace Dispelled--An Era of War all over the
+    World--The Russian War--The Queen's Visits to the Wounded
+    Soldiers--Presentation of the War Medals--Crimean Heroes--The
+    Volunteer Movement                                                 172
+
+
+  CHAPTER XXI.
+
+  THE QUEEN IN HER HIGHLAND HOME.
+
+    The Queen as an Author--"The Early Years of the Prince
+    Consort"--"Leaves from the Journal of Our Life in the
+    Highlands"--Love for Children of all Ranks--Mountain Ascents
+    on Pony-back--In Fingal's Cave--"The Queen's Luck"--
+    Salmon-spearing, and a Catastrophe attending it--Erection of
+    a Memorial Cairn--Freedom of Intercourse with Humble
+    Highlanders--Visits to Cottagers--"Mrs. Albert"--Travelling
+    Incognito--Highland Dinners--"A Wedding-Party frae
+    Aberdeen"--A Disguise Detected                                     186
+
+
+  CHAPTER XXII.
+
+  THE WIDOWED QUEEN.
+
+    Unbroken Happiness of the Queen's Life up to 1861--Death of
+    the Duchess of Kent--The Prince Consort slightly Ailing--
+    Catches Cold at Cambridge and Eton--The Malady becomes
+    Serious--Public Alarm--Rapid Sinking, and Death--Sorrow of
+    the People--The Queen's Fortitude--Avoidance of Court
+    Display--Good Deeds--Sympathy with all Benevolent Actions--
+    Letter of Condolence to the Widow of President Lincoln--The
+    "Albert Medal"--Conclusion                                         194
+
+
+
+
+LIFE OF QUEEN VICTORIA.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+ANCESTRY.
+
+    Frederick the Wise, Elector of Saxony, the Protector of
+    Luther--Staunch Protestantism of the Queen's Saxon Forefathers--House
+    of Saxe-Coburg--A Saxon Desperado of the Middle Ages--A Fighting Hero
+    of the Eighteenth Century--The Queen's Grandmother a Woman of
+    Extraordinary Excellence--Great Alliances in the Marriages of her
+    Uncles and Aunts.
+
+
+Queen Victoria is, through her mother, descended--and her children are
+descended by the double line of both their parents--from the great, good,
+and glorious Frederick the Wise, Elector of Saxony early in the sixteenth
+century, who was one of the first to embrace the principles of Luther's
+Reformation, and whose name still stands out so nobly and brightly as the
+staunch and courageous protector of the great Reformer. The Ernestine
+branch of this great Saxon house, from which the Queen and the Prince
+Consort both derived their descent, have ever, though at great cost and
+injury to themselves at many periods of their history, remained true to
+the principles thus early adopted by their common ancestor; and they have
+ever considered it as the brightest glory of their race, that they can
+proudly point to this unquestionable fact. When one of the most
+distinguished members--if, indeed, he was not the most illustrious
+scion--of this family, the Queen's maternal uncle, Leopold, King of the
+Belgians, made a journey into Scotland, to allay the pangs of the
+bereavement which he had suffered in the untimely death of his young wife,
+the Princess Charlotte, he paid a visit of a few days' duration to Sir
+Walter Scott at Abbotsford. While there, an aged and reverend Scottish
+divine was presented to the Prince. The clergyman, in the course of the
+interview, made complimentary reference to this fact in the descent of the
+Prince. Prince Leopold, in reply, stated that this was the first notice
+which had been taken of the circumstance in his presence since the day of
+his first arrival in England, and that he felt more honoured by it than by
+any other tribute which had been paid to him and his family.
+
+[Sidenote: "A GLIMPSE OF SAXON HISTORY."]
+
+The curious in such matters, those for whom the minute particularity of
+authenticated genealogical detail possesses a charm, with which the
+compiler of these pages acknowledges that he is himself affected, but
+which it would be unfair to such of his readers as do not share this taste
+to minister to at excessive length--such we refer to the Reverend Edward
+Tauerschmidt's "Brief Historical Account of the Dukedom and Ducal House of
+Saxe-Coburg and Gotha." There they will find the full pedigree, with no
+link wanting, which connects Her Majesty, and equally her first cousin and
+spouse, by the links of twenty-five generations, with the Saxon Earl
+Theodoric, or Dideric, of the House of Bucizi, who is recorded to have
+died in the year of our Lord 982. We content ourselves with proceeding at
+a leap to the reign of Frederick the Benignant, Elector of Saxony, who
+was thirteenth in descent from Earl Theodoric, and died in 1464. In a most
+fascinating article which was contributed by Mr. Carlyle to the January
+number of the _Westminster Review_ for the year 1855, entitled, "A Glimpse
+of Saxon History," a most romantic incident of this Elector's reign is
+narrated with the writer's customary graphic power. This potentate had a
+"fighting captain" in his employ, by name Kunz von Kaufungen. Fighting for
+his master, he was captured, and being a warrior of importance, was
+amerced in the heavy ransom of a sum equal to 2,000 English pounds. This
+he paid, but expected to be indemnified by Frederick. This expectation,
+for some reason, was not fulfilled. Kunz, exasperated, swore to be
+avenged. On the 7th of July, 1455, Kunz entered the town of Altenburg, at
+the head of a party of thirty men. Having bribed one of the servants to
+treachery, they obtained admission into the Electoral castle, from which
+they carried off Frederick's two sons, the Princes Ernest and Albert. The
+Electress soon discovered her loss, and the desperadoes had not proceeded
+far on their several ways (they had divided into two bands, each having
+one of the children), ere they were hotly pursued. Kunz himself headed
+that moiety of his force who bore with them Ernest, the elder boy and the
+more valuable hostage. The pursuers caused alarms to be rung from the
+village spires, and amongst others of the peasantry who were aroused, was
+a rough charcoal-burner, who, encountering the party of Kunz, "belaboured
+him with the poking-pole" which he used in his vocation, and to such
+effect that he vanquished the abductor, rescued the boy, and had the
+happiness of restoring him to the arms of his agonised mother. When
+asked, wonderingly and admiringly, how he dared to attack so formidable a
+foe, he replied to his fair and grateful querist, "Madam, I _drilled_ him
+soundly with my poking-pole." From that day he was known by no other name
+than the Driller--_der Triller_. Kunz was consigned to the block, while
+the Driller, and deliverer, was offered any reward he chose to name. This
+true man--a mediaeval "Miller of the Dee"--asked no other recompense than
+"only liberty to cut, of scrags and waste wood, what will suffice for my
+charring purposes." This was at once granted, along with the freehold of a
+snug farm, and an annual and ample allowance of corn from the barns of the
+Electors. All was secured to him and his posterity by formal deed, and his
+descendants to this day enjoy the privileges so valiantly earned by their
+ancestor four centuries ago. From the two princes so rescued, descended
+respectively the Ernestine and the Albertine branches of the Saxon house.
+The Queen is--as her husband was--twelfth in descent from the little
+Prince Ernest, who became the progenitor of the former line.
+
+[Sidenote: THE QUEEN'S SAXON ANCESTORS.]
+
+The parent stock had boasted among other meritorious or distinguished
+representatives the names of Conrad the Great, Otho the Rich, Henry the
+Illustrious, three Fredericks, dubbed respectively the Serious, the
+Warlike, and the Benignant; whilst, as disparaging sets-off, either
+demerit or misfortune was indicated, in the instance of other Electors, by
+these sobriquets--the Oppressed, the Degenerate, the Severe, and,
+strangest of all, Frederick-with-the-Wounded-Cheek. This habit of
+designating the successive Electors by their moral or other
+peculiarities, or by the incidents or accidents of their careers, was
+continued but for a few generations of the Ernestine branch of the
+bifurcated line. It contained a Magnanimous Frederick, and a Fiery Ernest,
+after whose death, in 1675, this pleasing plan of picturesque designation
+no longer meets the eye of the student.
+
+The chivalrous protection which Frederick the Magnanimous--or the Wise, as
+he is sometimes also denominated--spread as a buckler over Luther and the
+Lutherans cost him his birthright. The bigoted Charles V. diverted, in
+1547, the Electoral dignity from the Ernestine to the Albertine branch,
+and the fortunes of the house cannot be said to have been fully restored
+until the Treaty of Tilsit, in 1807, ratified as its main provisions were
+by that of Vienna, seven years later.
+
+Coming down to more recent times, and to the Queen's more immediate
+ancestry, we find the old spirit which these brave Saxon princes
+represented in the stirring mediaeval and Reforming days, abundantly
+maintained in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, and notably so on
+the field of battle, in the great wars with which the names of Frederick
+the Great, Maria Theresa, Suwarow, and Napoleon are associated.
+Francis Josias was twenty-second of the line, and the Queen's
+great-great-grandfather. His great-grandson, the late King Leopold, says
+of him, that he was "much looked up to." He was a tall and powerful man,
+but disfigured by having lost an eye at tennis, a game then very popular
+on the Continent. One of his grandsons, a Prince Frederick Josias, served
+with distinction in the Seven Years' War, in one of the battles of which
+he was shot through the hand. He was subsequently employed in high
+positions by the Empress Maria Theresa, and made a great name for himself
+against the Turks. Suwarow and he extricated the Emperor Joseph, the son
+of the Empress, from utter failure, and conquered the Principalities. He
+afterwards fought against Dumouriez in the Netherlands, and gained the
+battle of Neerwinden, in 1793, near Tirlemont; "one of the greatest
+battles of modern history," says his nephew, King Leopold, a most
+competent authority on the subject. He says that, but for the inaction of
+the Dutch contingent, and the insane attempt of the Duke of York to
+conquer Dunkirk, the allies, after this victory, which cleared the
+Netherlands of the French, might as easily have marched upon Paris as the
+forces of Wellington and Blucher did after Waterloo.
+
+The Queen's grandfather, suffering early in life from exceedingly bad
+health, was cast in a much less energetic mould, but his character was
+eminently benevolent and loveable, and he had a knowledge and love of the
+fine arts, which Prince Albert, in the highest degree of all his
+descendants, inherited. The Queen's grandmother, who was of the
+Reuss-Ebersdorff family, was equally warm-hearted, possessed a powerful
+mind, and "loved her grandchildren most tenderly." We shall have much to
+say of her in subsequent pages.
+
+[Sidenote: THE HOUSE OF SAXE-COBURG.]
+
+Of the Queen's aunts, one, after declining many eligible offers in her own
+princely rank, married Count Mensdorff-Pouilly, a French emigrant of the
+Revolution, who entered the Austrian service, and became the father of the
+well-known Austrian statesman, Count Arthur Mensdorff, who was the bosom
+friend of Prince Albert from his earliest infancy until his untimely
+death. A second married the reigning Duke of Wurtemburg, and occupied for
+many years a very influential position in Russia, her husband being
+brother of the Empress Catherine (the second of that name), and maternal
+uncle of the Emperors Alexander and Nicholas. The third daughter of the
+house herself became a Russian Grand Duchess; she was wedded at the age of
+fifteen to the Grand Duke Constantine. The marriage was an inharmonious
+one, and in 1802 the young pair agreed to separate. Both husband and wife
+were acquitted of all blame; Leopold, the brother of the latter,
+attributes the sad event to "the shocking hypocrisy of the
+Empress-mother," in the absence of which "things might have gone on." The
+Queen's mother, who was christened Victoire (or Victoria) Marie Louise,
+was the youngest of the four sisters. Besides Duke Ernest, the father of
+Prince Albert, the Queen had two other maternal uncles. One was Frederick
+George, who married a great heiress, the Hungarian Princess of Kohary. His
+son became the consort of Donna Maria II. of Portugal; his grandson, the
+present King of Portugal, is the Queen's first cousin once removed, and
+the second cousin of her children. Her other uncle was the late King of
+the Belgians, whose career is a portion of the history of our
+grandfathers', our fathers', and our own times, and is so intimately
+associated with the life and fortunes of Her Majesty as to merit separate
+treatment in a succeeding chapter, and elsewhere incidentally in the
+course of our narrative.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+THE GREATEST OF THE MODERN COBURGS.
+
+    Romantic Career of Prince Leopold of Saxe-Coburg, the Queen's
+    Uncle--his Continuous, Kind, and Fatherly Care of his Orphaned
+    Niece--The Duchy of Coburg held by Napoleon--Sufferings of the Ducal
+    Family--A Temptation resisted--The Tide turned--Leopold's Popularity
+    in England--Betrothal and Marriage to the Princess Charlotte of Wales.
+
+
+[Sidenote: PRINCE LEOPOLD OF SAXE-COBURG.]
+
+Born in the year 1790, Prince Leopold was a soldier and in the saddle when
+he was fifteen years of age. In 1805, that war broke out between Napoleon
+and Austria, in which the power of the Kaiser was so near being destroyed.
+The health of the Duke Francis, Leopold's father, was fast failing him,
+and the tremendous sorrows and sufferings inflicted by the victorious
+French upon Germany, hastened the rapidity of his descent to the grave.
+Ernest, the eldest son, and Leopold hurriedly left Coburg to join the
+Russian army in Moravia. Their only other brother was already in an
+Austrian regiment of Hussars. Ere Leopold could flesh his sword,
+Austerlitz had been fought and lost, and Austria was thoroughly crippled.
+He returned to Coburg to witness his father's death. The French were in
+possession of the town and Duchy, and when they learned that the new Duke
+was with their Prussian foe, they appointed a military intendant, a M.
+Vilain--in nature as well as in name, so Leopold afterwards recorded. The
+Ducal family were reduced to such straits, that they depended for their
+very sustenance upon the clandestine benefactions of the Governmental
+subordinates, surlily winked at by their French masters. The Duchess set
+off on a journey to Warsaw to endeavour to propitiate Napoleon; but she
+was permitted to proceed no farther than Berlin, as Napoleon hated such
+visits. She returned baffled to Coburg, which remained "une possession
+Francaise." The Peace of Tilsit, among its other provisions,
+"reintegrated" Coburg; but, through the greed and treachery of Prussia,
+the stipulated arrangements were never fulfilled. On the ratification of
+the Peace, Duke Ernest came to Coburg for the first time to assume his
+Ducal power and dignity.
+
+As a matter of policy, Leopold, with other German Princes, now visited
+Napoleon at Paris, where he was courteously received. On his return from
+Paris, early in 1808, he nearly died of scarlet fever. After a very tardy
+and painful recovery, he went, at the end of the year, to the Congress of
+Erfurth, to which he had been summoned by the Czar Alexander. He tried
+there to secure to his brother his undiminished territorial possessions,
+and succeeded in making such a favourable impression upon Napoleon that he
+would have done so, but for the impolitic excessiveness of his brother's
+claims, and the apathetic manner in which the Czar supported them. The war
+with Russia came on, in which he eagerly desired to serve against the
+French; but Napoleon caused it to be known that if he did so his brother
+would be held responsible; so he had to abide in inglorious and detested
+ease. Napoleon made him tempting offers to enter his service, and would
+have been more incensed at his persistent refusal than he was, but for
+the friendly intercession of Josephine and Queen Hortense, her daughter,
+who were both very friendly to the young Prince.
+
+Meanwhile he turned his eminent talents for diplomacy to good account. He
+persuaded Bavaria to return to his brother portions of Coburg territory
+which that state unjustly held, and removed the galling pain of the
+Bavarian flag floating over villages within four English miles of the town
+of Coburg itself.
+
+[Sidenote: THE PRINCESS CHARLOTTE.]
+
+In 1812 Napoleon's frightful war with Russia broke out. Napoleon summoned
+the subject and enfeebled German Princes to Dresden. Duke Ernest was
+compelled to go, and Leopold also was cited to the gathering, but he went
+to Vienna, and then to Italy, to keep out of the way. It would have been
+now most dangerous to decline the French service, and he was determined at
+all costs not to enter it. "Germany," said he, "was, at the beginning of
+1812, in the lowest and most humiliating position; Austria and Prussia
+sunk to be auxiliaries; everybody frightened and submissive, except Spain,
+supported by England." But Napoleon's reverses in Russia soon followed,
+and they electrified all Germany into new courage. The Duke of Coburg
+posted off to Berlin to endeavour to stimulate the perplexed, vacillating,
+and timorous Prussian King into manly and decided action. The other
+brother, Ferdinand, went to Vienna on a similar errand. Leopold hied him
+to Munich to stir up the Crown Prince of Bavaria, afterwards King Louis.
+They were all moderately successful, and Leopold hastened to Kalisch, in
+Poland, being the first German Prince to join the Army of Liberation. He
+was equally honoured and gratified by being appointed a Major-General by
+the Czar. He was present at the hard-fought but indecisive battles of
+Lutzen and Bautzen. There followed an armistice, and a conference at
+Prague, with a view to a definite settlement. This the Prince attended. He
+was the only person admitted to the presence of the Emperor of Austria,
+and spent much of his time with the plenipotentiaries Metternich,
+Humboldt, Ansted, Gentz, and others. The negotiations broke off, and
+hostilities were resumed. At the decided defeat which the French general
+Vandamme sustained, shortly before the crowning victory of Leipsic,
+Leopold commanded all the allied cavalry, and distinguished himself the
+more that he was the only general in the field who knew the country. He
+was present, and in high command, at Leipsic, where Germany was finally
+freed. After the fight, the Grand Duke Constantine accompanied him to
+Coburg, visiting the relatives of the wife from whom he was now separated,
+and who lived and died in retirement in Switzerland. Amongst others they
+visited the future Duchess of Kent, then Princess of Leiningen, her first
+husband being still alive. Shortly afterwards Constantine and Leopold
+rejoined the army in Switzerland, where Leopold tried hard, but
+ineffectually, to effect a reconciliation between his sister and her
+husband. Leopold subsequently entered Paris at the head of the cavalry;
+his eldest brother procured the evacuation of Mayence by its French
+garrison. The three brothers all met in Paris, from which Leopold
+proceeded, in the suite of the Czar, to the great triumphant gathering of
+the Allied Sovereigns in London. Now for the first time he met his future
+bride, the Princess Charlotte, only child of the Prince Regent, and heir
+to the throne. His splendid continental career already propitiated her,
+as it did all the British people, in his favour. The project of a
+matrimonial union between the gallant young general and the still more
+youthful princess was warmly taken up by the leading men in power,
+including Wellington, his brothers, and Castlereagh. The Prince Regent
+alone was opposed to the project. He was irritated by his daughter's
+repugnance to the Prince of Orange, who was destined by him to be his
+son-in-law, and by her recent flight from Carlton House to the residence
+of her mother. Leopold, however, decidedly succeeded in winning the
+affections of the lady herself, and the nation was delighted at the
+project. The Dukes of York and Kent, too, warmly encouraged his suit. On
+his return home he found that his youngest sister had been unexpectedly
+left a widow, and he arranged the guardianship and pecuniary affairs of
+the future mother of England's Queen. At the Congress of Vienna, whither
+he went to plead the cause of his brother, his amazing sagacity and tact
+induced the negotiators to make a very satisfactory arrangement of
+frontier. This he settled, to the great chagrin of Humboldt, the Prussian
+envoy, who, with the Prussian Court and people generally, seems to have
+been extremely spiteful towards the little principality, their near
+neighbour.
+
+[Sidenote: A ROYAL MARRIAGE.]
+
+Leopold was not at Waterloo--fought so near the capital of his future
+kingdom. He was posted in Alsace in command of an army of observation,
+which, of course, was never needed for action. Leopold went alone to
+Paris, with the leave of the Czar, still animated by the purpose of
+advancing his brother's pretensions; Prussia having failed to carry out
+the rectifications of frontier enacted at Vienna the year before. He
+succeeded in this object, and hopes of the highest nature were engendered
+about an affair still nearer to his heart. Wellington and Castlereagh
+treated him with marked and significant deference. And through the kind
+intervention of the good-hearted and simple-minded Duke of Kent, he
+received from his ladye-love some pleasant tokens of continued affection
+and renewed pledges of staunch fidelity. He was strongly recommended to
+repair to England and renew and prosecute his wooing in person; but he
+very astutely declined, thinking it unwise to "brave" the Prince Regent.
+He went, instead, to Vienna, to act as groomsman at the wedding of his
+brother Ferdinand with the great Hungarian heiress whose love he had won;
+and from thence to Berlin, persistently to enforce his brother's twice
+recognised and sanctioned rights. At Berlin he received a welcome
+invitation to England from the Regent, and a most satisfactory letter of
+"explanation" from Lord Castlereagh. He arrived in London in February,
+1816. Castlereagh at once took him to Brighton, where the Regent was. He
+received his daughter's wooer most graciously. The old queen and her three
+daughters posted after Leopold from London, and in a family council the
+marriage was definitely agreed on. The young couple were married in May,
+amid the joyful acclamations of the whole nation.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+PARENTAGE AND BIRTH OF QUEEN VICTORIA.
+
+    How the Princess Victoria came to be Heiress Presumptive to the
+    Throne--Death of the Princess Charlotte--Marriages of the Royal
+    Dukes--Of the Duke of Kent--Birth of the Princess Alexandrina
+    Victoria--Prediction of George IV.--Death of the Duke of Kent--His
+    Character--His Liberal Opinions--Public Condolence with the Widow and
+    Orphan--Early Life of the Duchess of Kent.
+
+
+[Sidenote: MARRIAGE OF THE DUKE OF KENT.]
+
+On the 6th of November, 1817, the hopes of the nation, which had so fondly
+rested upon the happy union between the Princess Charlotte and Prince
+Leopold, were fatally blasted by Her Royal Highness's death, shortly after
+her delivery of a still-born child. Never in our history was a blow felt
+more deeply and personally by all the nation, than this bereavement. The
+death of the Princess Charlotte severely and most painfully disappointed
+the nation in its general expectation with regard to the much desired
+succession to the throne in the person of herself and her heirs. The Duke
+of Cumberland, who was hated by all, was the only married younger son of
+the king, and there was a general desire that the other royal princes,
+especially the popular and estimable Dukes of Kent and Sussex, should seek
+out suitable partners. The Duke of Kent rightly felt that the House of
+Brunswick was dear to the English people, that the nation had a very
+strong desire that the question of succession should be placed beyond
+doubt, and that, considering the uncertainty of the chances of life, and
+of leaving offspring, it was clearly his duty to marry. Indeed, he had
+already, ere the untimely death of his niece, offered his hand and heart
+to the widowed Princess of Leiningen. The Princess Charlotte tenderly
+loved her uncle Kent, who had done so much to promote the attainment of
+the wishes of her own heart, and she did all she could to promote the
+marriage of her uncle with the sister of her husband. But the position of
+the Princess of Leiningen as guardian of her two children occasioned
+delays; and no unimportant matter was the fact that if she re-married, she
+would sacrifice a jointure of nearly L5,000 a year, while the Duke of Kent
+was punished by the Court for his free and outspoken Liberal opinions by
+being restricted to a very meagre pecuniary allowance from the Tory
+Parliament. At last, however, all minor difficulties were smoothed over.
+On the 13th of May, a message was brought down to Parliament, announcing
+that "the Prince Regent had given his consent to a marriage between the
+Duke of Kent and Her Serene Highness Mary Louisa Victoria, daughter of the
+Duke of Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld, widow of Enrich Charles, Prince of
+Leiningen, and sister of Prince Leopold." Of all the royal marriages, this
+was the one which the heart of the country went most thoroughly along
+with. The Duke of Kent never disguised--indeed, he openly proclaimed--his
+attachment to the principles of the popular party; and the fact of the
+close relationship of his intended wife to Prince Leopold was another
+strong recommendation. The marriage was celebrated, first according to the
+Lutheran rites in Germany, on the 29th May, 1818, and, on the 13th of
+July following, by the Archbishop of Canterbury; the Prince Regent, on the
+latter occasion, giving away the bride. In the same summer, the Dukes of
+Clarence and Cambridge had married. The Duke of Sussex, whose affections
+and sympathies were otherwise engaged, declined to contract a foreign
+alliance; but he took the liveliest interest in the marriage of his
+favourite brother Kent, as he also did in the future welfare and
+prosperity of his niece.
+
+[Sidenote: CHRISTENING OF THE PRINCESS VICTORIA.]
+
+After the English marriage, the young couple sojourned for a brief period
+at Claremont, the residence which had been selected by the Princess
+Charlotte, and which Prince Leopold continued to occupy. They then, guided
+chiefly by motives of economy, for their means were very small, travelled
+on the Continent, from which they returned for the accouchement of the
+Duchess. Both prospective parents were desirous that their child should be
+"born a Briton." They arrived at Dover on the 23rd of April, 1819, and on
+the 24th of May the Princess Alexandrina Victoria was born at Kensington
+Palace. She was born in the presence of the Dukes of Sussex and
+Wellington, the Archbishop of Canterbury, the Marquis of Lansdowne, Earl
+Bathurst, Mr. Canning, Mr. Vansittart, and the Bishop of London. The Duke
+of Kent wept for joy, and the fact that his infant was a daughter did not
+in the least degree diminish his delight. The Duchess rapidly recovered,
+and the beauty and symmetry of the infant Princess were spoken of with
+admiration by all who had an opportunity of observing her. Shortly after
+this happy event, the Duke of Kent attended a drawing-room, from which,
+and similar Court ceremonies, the estrangement between himself and the
+Regent had for some time kept him away. His brother was most affable, and
+invited him to dine the next day, when he predicted that his little niece
+would be Queen some time. This certainly seemed improbable shortly
+afterwards, for Clarence, who was nearer in succession than Kent, became
+the father of two daughters by his wife, Adelaide. But they both died
+young, thereby opening the succession to the child of the Duke of Kent,
+and verifying the Regent's prophecy. The child was christened with great
+privacy, on the 24th of June, in the Palace of Kensington. The royal gold
+font was fetched from the Tower, and fitted up in the grand saloon of the
+palace. Under the direction of the Lord Chamberlain, the draperies were
+removed from the Chapel Royal, St. James's. The Archbishop of Canterbury,
+assisted by the Bishop of London, administered the holy office; the Prince
+Regent, the members of the Royal Family, and other illustrious visitors
+were present. The sponsors were the Prince Regent, the Czar Alexander
+(represented by the Duke of York as proxy), the Queen Dowager of
+Wurtemberg (represented by the Princess Augusta), and the Duchess Dowager
+of Coburg (represented by the Duchess of Gloucester). A brilliant evening
+party filled the saloons of the happy parents.
+
+The Duke and Duchess still made Claremont their chief home. But the winter
+of 1819-20 set in with unusual severity, and they went to Sidmouth, in the
+hope of escaping its trying severity. From Sidmouth the Duke made an
+excursion to visit Salisbury Cathedral, where he caught a slight cold. On
+his return to Sidmouth it became alarming, and the Duchess sent off in
+haste to her brother, who was visiting at Lord Craven's. Soon after his
+arrival, the Duke breathed his last. While his cold still slightly
+affected him, he had gone for a long walk, on the 13th of January, with
+Captain Conroy, and had his boots soaked through with wet. He neglected to
+change his boots and stockings until he dressed for dinner, being
+attracted by the smiles of his infant princess, with whom he sat for some
+time playing. Before night he had a sensation of cold and hoarseness, but
+the doctors were not alarmed, and merely prescribed mild medicaments and a
+good night's rest. But the symptoms of fever rapidly increased, and, in
+spite of much blood-letting, he died ten days from the date of the
+recurrence of his cold. He met his death with pious resignation. The
+Duchess was most indefatigable in her attentions, and personally performed
+all the offices of the sick-bed. For five successive nights she never took
+off her clothes, and she struggled to prevent his seeing the agony of her
+apprehensions, never leaving the bed-side but to give vent to her bursting
+sorrow. The presence of her brother was a great comfort to her, both
+before and after the moment of death. It was fortunate, indeed, that
+Leopold was in this country, "as the poor Duke had left his family
+deprived of all means of existence." So did Leopold himself testify many
+years afterwards.
+
+[Sidenote: THE DUKE OF KENT.]
+
+The Duke of Kent, although unpopular in his youth on account of his
+strictness as a military disciplinarian, became in later days much
+beloved. His stature was tall, and his appearance noble and manly. His
+manner was engaging, and his conversation animated. He possessed an exact
+memory, varied information, a quick and masculine intellect. In many of
+his tastes and habits he closely resembled his father. He was an early
+riser, and a close economist of time; temperate in eating; though fond of
+society, indifferent to wine; a kind master, punctual correspondent, and
+exact man of business; a steady friend, and an affectionate brother. He
+was peculiarly exempt in his youth from those extravagances and vices with
+which the names of some of his brothers were so painfully associated. He
+was in his early life, which he spent in active and laborious military
+service, a pattern of prudence, economy, and industrious habits. He
+incurred no unnecessary expenses, and made few debts, although his annual
+allowance was only L1,000 for some years after he had attained his
+majority. He delighted in books, education, charity, and the promotion of
+all useful arts, and was a model son, husband, and father. He was a
+staunch and uncompromising advocate of those liberal opinions which it is
+so well known that his daughter inherits, which she displayed so
+unreservedly early in her reign, but the prominent expression of which
+prudence and constitutional restraints convinced her that it was advisable
+to keep in the background, as her mind grew and ripened. The Duke of
+Kent's political views will be gathered from the following extract from a
+speech at a banquet, in which he replied to the toast of the junior
+members of the Royal Family:--"I am a friend of civil and religious
+liberty, all the world over. I am an enemy to all religious tests. I am a
+supporter of a general system of education. All men are my brethren; and I
+hold that power is only delegated for the benefit of the people. These are
+the principles of myself and of my beloved brother, the Duke of Sussex.
+They are not popular principles just now; that is, they do not conduct to
+place or office. _All_ the members of the Royal Family do not hold the
+same principles. For this I do not blame them; but we claim for ourselves
+the right of thinking and acting as we think best, and we proclaim
+ourselves, with our friend Mr. Tierney, 'members of His Majesty's loyal
+Opposition.'" These words give a precise and definite idea of the
+character of this clear-headed, good-hearted, shrewd, practical, and
+unpretending man.
+
+Prince Leopold accompanied his widowed sister and the little orphan from
+Sidmouth to Kensington Palace. The weather was most severe, and the
+journey a trying one. The Houses of Parliament remembered, with respectful
+solicitude, the widowed and isolated state of the Duchess. Both Houses
+voted addresses of condolence. That from the Commons was presented by
+Lords Morpeth and Clive. She appeared in person, though unable to suppress
+her grief, with the infant Victoria in her arms, to receive the
+deputation. She presented the babe to the deputed Members, and pointed to
+her as the treasure to whose preservation and improvement she was resolved
+to dedicate her best energies and fondest love. The interview was
+exceedingly touching. A true woman, the Duchess could not conceal the
+intensity of her widowed grief; but that did not overshadow her maternal
+affection, and she recognised and spoke courageously of her duties, her
+responsibilities, and her high resolves. Public feeling and national
+anxiety accompanied her into her domestic privacy, and all classes of
+society took the deepest interest in all her movements.
+
+[Sidenote: THE DUCHESS OF KENT.]
+
+The Queen, indeed, owes much to her mother, who lived long enough to see
+her daughter's grandchildren. The Duchess of Kent had been brought up
+under the immediate care and superintendence of her illustrious mother,
+whose character we have already described. She had shared the youthful
+lessons of her brother Leopold--a source, doubtless of great intellectual
+profit. In 1802, when she was but sixteen, much against her own wish, and
+only in compliance with the entreaties of her beloved father--who wished
+to see his only surviving daughter married, in such troublesome times, ere
+the end of his precarious and sickly life came--she became the wife of the
+Prince of Leiningen, a man eight-and-twenty years her senior. The union
+was most inappropriate and unwise. Her husband was repugnant in person and
+manners. He failed either to secure her confidence or contribute to her
+happiness. Yet she fulfilled her duties as a wife and mother in so
+exemplary a manner, from her marriage to her husband's death, in 1814,
+that the breath of slander never sullied her fair fame. Indeed, by the
+purity of her life, the manner in which she discharged her maternal
+duties, and the graceful suavity of her manners, she did much to ennoble
+the character of the House of Leiningen, which her husband had done much
+to lower. Her marriage with the Duke of Kent was one of unmistakable
+affection, and was a very happy one. Their tastes were similar; but her
+meekness and tact had a beneficial influence in mitigating a certain stern
+and abrupt brusqueness which he partly inherited from his father, and
+partly derived from the camps and garrison towns in which his youth was
+spent. The simplicity and tender unaffectedness of her manners--a
+peculiarity distinctive of the highest class of well-bred German
+women--and her fascinating combination of gentleness with gaiety, not
+only won and bound, by daily increasing ties, the affections of her
+husband, but of all those who had the good fortune to become personally
+acquainted with her admirable life and disposition.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+
+FIRST YEARS OF CHILDHOOD.
+
+    Old Memories of Kensington Palace--Enlargements of the Structure by
+    William III., Anne, Queen Caroline, and the Duke of Sussex--Maids of
+    Honour--Rank and Beauty in the Gardens--Wilberforce and the Infant
+    Princess--Victoria at Ramsgate--A Picture of Victoria when Five Years
+    old--Her Physical Training--Popularity as a Child--Her Youthful
+    Charities--A Narrow Escape from Death--Early Development of Quick
+    Intelligence--Anecdotes--Love of Nature--Proneness to Self-will--But
+    Counterbalanced by Candour--Waggishness--A Portrait of the
+    Child-Princess by Leigh Hunt.
+
+
+The infancy, girlhood, and budding womanhood of the Princess Victoria were
+chiefly spent at the Royal Palace of Kensington. It was her mother's fixed
+residence, but the family were much at Claremont, where the Queen
+testifies that she spent the happiest days of her childhood. There were
+frequent trips made, too, to various watering-places; and, as the Princess
+grew in years, visits were paid at the country houses of some of the
+nobility. Leigh Hunt, in his exquisite book of gossip entitled "The Old
+Court Suburb," thus happily describes the more salient and prominent
+features of the somewhat sombre region of the Queen's up-bringing:--
+
+    In vain we are told that Wren is supposed to have built the south
+    front, and Kent (a man famous in his time) the east front. We can no
+    more get up any enthusiasm about it as a building, than if it were a
+    box or a piece of cheese. But it possesses a Dutch solidity; it can
+    be imagined full of English comfort; it is quiet; in a good air; and,
+    though it is a palace, no tragical history is connected with it: all
+    which considerations give it a sort of homely, fireside character,
+    which seems to represent the domestic side of royalty itself, and thus
+    renders an interesting service to what is not always so well
+    recommended by cost and splendour. Windsor Castle is a place to
+    receive monarchs in; Buckingham Palace to see fashion in; Kensington
+    Palace seems a place to drink tea in: and this is by no means a state
+    of things in which the idea of royalty comes least home to the good
+    wishes of its subjects. The reigns that flourished here, appositely
+    enough to this notion of the building, were all tea-drinking
+    reigns--at least on the part of the ladies; and if the present Queen
+    does not reign there, she was born and bred there, growing up quietly
+    under the care of a domestic mother; during which time, the
+    pedestrian, as he now goes quietly along the gardens, fancies no
+    harsher sound to have been heard from the Palace windows than the
+    "tuning of the tea-things," or the sound of a pianoforte.
+
+[Sidenote: KENSINGTON PALACE.]
+
+The associations of Kensington Palace are almost entirely with the earlier
+Hanoverian reigns; the later Georges neglected it. Rumour hath it that
+this royal domain originated in the establishment of a nursery for the
+children of Henry VIII. If it were so, Elizabeth and Victoria must have
+been brought up on the same spot; but the tradition is not well supported.
+Its first ascertained proprietor was Heneage Finch, Speaker of the House
+of Commons at the accession of the First Charles, who built and occupied
+only a small nucleus of the present structure, which was enlarged from
+time to time by most of its successive occupants, but with no pretension,
+and without much plan. From the second Earl of Nottingham, the grandson of
+Finch, William III. bought the house and grounds. The latter he enlarged
+to the extent of twenty-six acres. To these Anne added thirty, and to
+these in turn Queen Caroline, wife of George II., added three hundred.
+The house had been the while proportionately growing. Its last expansion
+was contributed by the Duke of Sussex.
+
+The gardens were pedantically squared to Dutch uniformity by William of
+Orange, and the semblance of a Court which he held in this Palace was
+correspondingly gloomy and dismal. The most singular visitor ever received
+by William was the Czar Peter, who drove hither _incognito_ in a hackney
+coach, on his arrival in London, and was afterwards entertained here with
+some slight show of state. In Anne's time, the palace and gardens were
+little livelier than in William's. The Queen hedged herself in behind
+absurd _chevaux-de-frise_ of etiquette, and the court chroniclers of the
+period record little else than eating and drinking. Swift and Prior,
+Bolingbroke and Marlborough, Addison and Steele, nevertheless, lent
+occasional gleams of brightness and dignity to the otherwise sombre scene.
+
+The most fascinating and memorable association of Kensington Palace is in
+connection with the Courts of the first two Georges, and of the son of the
+latter, Frederick Prince of Wales. These associations are specially
+connected with the bevies of frolicsome, and sometimes frail, maids of
+honour, who now live in the pages of Pope and Gay, of Hervey and Walpole.
+Chief among them was the gay, sprightly, and irresistible Molly Leppell,
+who resisted, in a manner equally indignant and comical, the degrading
+overtures of the coarse-souled George II. She married Hervey, the most
+effeminate and egregious dandy of his time. Chesterfield thus toasted her
+in a ballad on the beauties of the Court;--
+
+    Oh! if I had Bremen and Varden,
+      And likewise the Duchy of Zell,
+    I'd part with them all for a farden,
+      To have my dear Molly Leppell.
+
+Caroline of Anspach, consort of Frederick, Prince of Wales, introduced the
+habit of promenading in gorgeous costume in the gardens, first on
+Saturday, then on Sunday, afternoons. By degrees the quality were admitted
+as well as the royal family and their immediate attendants. The liberty
+was gradually extended to the general public. Hence it was that Kensington
+Gardens became in time as open to all comers as are the royal parks. These
+gorgeous promenades ceased with the commencement of the last malady of
+George III. It was in allusion to the stately train of attendant beauties
+who accompanied the Princess Caroline of Wales, that Tickell wrote--
+
+    Each walk, with robes of various dyes bespread,
+    Seems from afar a moving tulip bed,
+    Where rich brocades and glossy damasks glow,
+    And chintz, the rival of the showery bow.
+    Here England's Daughter, darling of the land,
+    Sometimes, surrounded with her virgin band,
+    Gleams through the shades. She, towering o'er the rest,
+    Stands fairest of the fairer kind confess'd;
+    Form'd to gain hearts that Brunswick's cause denied,
+    And charm a people to her father's side.
+
+With the death of George II., the glory departed from Kensington. No
+future English King favoured or frequented it. George III. never resided
+in the Palace, and it was altogether too dull and homely for his eldest
+son. He was willing enough that his bookish brother Sussex, and his steady
+brother Kent, should abide in it; and, as one writer puts it, depicting
+the "first gentleman in Europe" in a light far from pleasing, but for the
+use of which we fear there was too much foundation--"He was well content
+to think that the staid-looking house and formal gardens rendered the spot
+a good out-of-the-way sort of place enough, for obscuring the growth and
+breeding of his niece and probable heiress, the Princess Victoria, whose
+life, under the guidance of a wise mother, promised to furnish so
+estimable a contrast to his own."
+
+[Sidenote: WILBERFORCE AND THE PRINCESS.]
+
+It was in the rooms, rich with such varied associations as those, some few
+of which we have cited, and surrounded by the remarkable collection of
+pictures, chiefly by Byzantine and early German painters--that England's
+future Queen grew up from babyhood to womanhood. Amongst the very earliest
+notices of the infant Princess is the following, which we cite from a
+letter written by Wilberforce to his friend, Hannah More, on the 21st
+July, 1820. He says:--
+
+    In consequence of a very civil message from the Duchess of Kent, I
+    waited on her this morning. She received me with her fine animated
+    child on the floor by her side, with its playthings, of which I soon
+    became one. She was very civil; but, as she did not sit down, I did
+    not think it right to stay above a quarter of an hour; and there being
+    but a female attendant and footman present, I could not well get up
+    any topic, so as to carry on a continued discourse. She apologised for
+    not speaking English well enough to talk it; but intimated a hope that
+    she might talk it better and longer with me at some future time. She
+    spoke of her situation [this was, probably, in reference to the cold
+    treatment of her and hers by George IV.], and her manner was quite
+    delightful.
+
+Four years later, the Duchess and the little Princess paid one of many
+visits to Ramsgate: and it would appear that the Duchess of Kent had
+already succeeded in being able to talk English "better and longer" with
+Wilberforce "at some future time;" for an eye-witness, who was familiar
+with all the group, witnessed the following scene. It was a fine summer
+day: too warm anywhere but on the shore of the sea, the breeze from which
+sufficiently moderated the temperature. A little girl, with a fair, light
+form, was sporting on the sands in all the redolence of youth and health.
+Her dress was simple--plain straw bonnet, with a white riband round the
+crown, a coloured muslin frock, and "as pretty a pair of shoes, on as
+pretty a pair of feet, as I ever remember to have seen from China to
+Kamschatka"--so testifies the authority from whom we quote. The child had
+two companions--her mother and William Wilberforce. The latter looked as
+lovingly on the child as did her mother. His kindly eye followed with
+tender interest her every footstep, and he was evidently meditating on the
+great destiny which was in store for her, when her mother, less
+meditative, more concerned with the affairs of the present, suddenly
+observed that her daughter had got her shoe's wetted by a breaker. She
+waved her hand, and Victoria, obedient to the signal, at once rejoined her
+mother and her friend. Perhaps another motive might have been at work in
+the mother's breast; for immediately the child had joined the elders,
+Wilberforce took her hand in both of his, and addressed to her some kindly
+words, doubtless of excellent counsel, for the blue eyes of the girl
+looked fixedly at her venerable instructor, and the devoted mother glanced
+from one to the other, evidently interested and affected by the contrast.
+Wilberforce was no wearisome restrainer of the buoyancy of youth; a few
+minutes later, he and his young companion were standing at the margin of
+the tide, watching the encroachments of each new breaker, and the
+dexterity with which a pet Newfoundland dog brought bits of stick out of
+the waves.
+
+[Sidenote: MORAL TRAINING.]
+
+During the earliest years of her childhood, Victoria does not seem to have
+been harassed with book-learning--a most wise and excellent omission. In
+1823, the Dowager Duchess of Coburg wrote to her daughter--"Do not yet
+tease your little puss with learning; she is so young still." The Queen's
+mother followed the good advice; it was the cultivation of the heart of
+her child at which she first strove. Above everything, any approach to
+pride or hauteur was discouraged. The convictions equally with the natural
+temperament of the Duchess, led her to regard such a quality as specially
+to be avoided. She was trained to be courteous, affable, lively, and to
+put social inferiors perfectly at their ease. In her juvenile sea-side and
+other excursions, it was constantly observed by every one that the faces
+of the bathing-women, and others of the same class, whose services were
+needed, lighted up with genuine, unaffected gladness whenever the young
+Princess appeared. The following little picture deserves to be reproduced,
+without tampering with the colours of its portrayer:--"As she proceeded up
+the High Street from the sands, there sat on the low step of a closed shop
+an aged Irishwoman, pale, wan, dejected, sorrowful, her head bent forward,
+and whilst all nature was gay, she looked sickly, sad, and famishing.
+Whether she was too depressed to beg, or too exhausted at that moment to
+make the effort, I cannot tell, but she asked for no alms, and even
+looked not at the passers-by. The young Princess was attracted by her
+appearance, and spoke to the Duchess: 'I think not,' were the only words I
+heard from her mamma; and, 'Oh, yes, indeed!' was all I could catch of the
+youthful reply. I have no doubt the Duchess thought the old woman was not
+in need of relief, or would be offended by the offer of alms; but the
+Princess had looked under her bonnet, and gained a better insight into her
+condition. There was a momentary pause; the Princess ran back a few steps
+most nimbly, and with a smile of heartfelt delight placed some silver in
+the hands of the old Irishwoman. Tall and stately was the poor creature,
+and as she rose slowly with clasped hands and riveted features, she
+implored the blessing of Heaven on the 'English lady.' She was so taken by
+surprise by this unexpected mark of beneficence on the part of she knew
+not whom, that she turned over her sixpences again and again, thanked the
+Virgin, as well as the 'young lady,' a thousand times, and related to
+those who stopped to hear her exclamations, the 'good luck' that had come
+upon her."
+
+[Sidenote: THE QUEEN'S CHILDHOOD.]
+
+While still not a year old, and ere her father's death, the intensity of
+interest which the people took in the safety and welfare of the Princess
+had been strongly displayed in the universal satisfaction which was
+expressed at her providential escape from being wounded, if not killed, in
+consequence of some boys shooting at birds near the temporary residence of
+the Duke at Sidmouth. Some of the shots penetrated the window of the
+nursery, and passed very near the child's head. This universal interest
+became yet deeper, when, after the lapse of two or three years, both of
+the daughters of the Duke of Clarence having died, and there being no
+probability of any issue in the line of either the Dukes of York or
+Clarence, she became the eventual successor to the throne, in the event of
+the deaths of these two elder brothers of her father. It was now learned
+with delight that she passed through the ordinary maladies of childhood
+favourably, and that her recovery from them was speedy. The public had
+ample opportunities afforded them of observing her growing and healthful
+strength; and all commented with pleasure upon the circumstance that she
+was not kept secluded from the view and observation of the people, that
+her rides and walks were generally in public, that she was growing up
+towards maturity in the sight of the nation, and as the child of the
+country. It was further a matter of great general rejoicing that those who
+were selected, even from the earliest period, to surround her person were
+of the most irreproachable character, and that moral worth was sought for
+in her preceptors even more than brilliant attainments.
+
+It is especially worthy of notice that the Duke and Duchess of Clarence,
+their hearts not being made in the slightest degree callous or soured by
+their own melancholy bereavements and the disappointment of their fondest
+hopes, formed and displayed for their niece a sincere and warm attachment.
+They took from the very first the warmest interest in all her vicissitudes
+and illnesses; and when they became King and Queen their elevated
+positions only seemed to increase the warmth of their regard, and the
+copious flow of their practical kindness. It was, therefore, no wonder
+that when, under Providence, Victoria became Queen she treated the Queen
+Dowager with most unequivocal respect and esteem, regarding her
+suggestions with deference, and her wishes with loving compliance.
+
+Spite of many sinister rumours, the Princess grew up strong and vigorous.
+Her mother was especially careful to fortify her constitution, and so to
+prepare it to encounter the hard work and manifold anxiety which are the
+inevitable lot of a British sovereign. Many there were--some of them with
+ends of their own to gain--who kept prophesying that "the daughter of the
+Duke of Kent would never attain her legal majority;" or, that "she would
+never marry;" again, that "she could never become the mother of a family."
+Much alarm was caused by these prognostications. For one thing was above
+all others ardently desired by the nation--that the Duke of Cumberland,
+who stood next in succession after the Princess, should never become King
+of England. Even if he had not been an object of something more than
+suspicion, it was universally desired that England should never again
+(after King William's death) be united with Hanover under one monarch. But
+as facts became known by degrees about the Princess, as her healthy face
+and agile frame became familiar in London, and in many parts of the land,
+the apprehensions died away, and the "frail, delicate, sickly child,"
+whose fabricated ailments had been made the subject of so much sham
+sympathy, was looked upon as a fabulous invention.
+
+[Sidenote: LEARNING TO READ.]
+
+It soon became known that her physical and mental characteristics were of
+a nature directly the opposite of what had been so industriously reported.
+She was extremely active, and had a healthy love of sports and games. She
+had an inquiring mind, not only restless in the pursuit, but clear in the
+comprehension of knowledge. She soon developed, too, much decision of
+character. Seemingly incapable of fatigue, she was the first to begin, and
+the last to leave off, a study, a romp, a game, a new duty, and equally
+eager to resume an old occupation. This peculiarity, it was gladly
+observed, was an inheritance from her father; but her mother also set her
+a congenial example of industry and perseverance. Such stories as the
+following were gleefully passed throughout the land from lip to lip. While
+she was learning her alphabet, she, doubtful of the utility of being so
+tormented, ejaculated--"What good this?--what good this?" She was told
+that "mamma could know all that was contained in the great book on the
+table because she knew _her_ letters, whilst the little daughter could
+not." This was quite enough, and the young acolyte of the alphabet cried
+out, "I learn, too--I learn, too--very quick." And she did become rapidly
+mistress of her letters. Her mother sought to teach her to be satisfied
+with simple pleasures, and here she was a most apt pupil. Once, when she
+was so young that she could not express what she felt, she dragged her
+uncle Clarence to the window to observe a beautiful sunset. To her uncle
+Leopold, too, she was constantly pointing out objects of natural beauty,
+on which he invariably improved the opportunity by giving her prompt and
+clear explanations of the phenomena which evoked her admiration. Her
+engrossing passion, indeed--as was that of her future husband--was for
+cabinets of natural history, menageries, museums, &c. For pictures she had
+an equal love, and one of the first acquirements in which she became
+proficient was sketching from nature.
+
+Perhaps the greatest danger she incurred, and the one which her mother had
+to take the greatest pains to avert, was the likelihood that her
+independent decision of character, which she derived from the Hanoverian
+half of her ancestry, might degenerate into stubbornness and self-will.
+But her natural sense of justice, and ready openness to clear conviction,
+proved an admirable counterpoise. With peculiar ingenuousness of
+character, she unreservedly admitted an error the very instant she
+perceived it. Once, for example, when on a visit to Earl Fitzwilliam, a
+bosom friend of her father, the party were walking in the grounds, and she
+had run on in advance. An under-gardener cautioned her not to go down a
+certain walk, as, said he, in his provincial dialect, the rain had made
+the ground "slape." "Slape! slape!" cried she, rapidly, and in the true
+George III. style; "and pray, what is 'slape?'" "Very slippery, miss--your
+Royal Highness--ma'am," replied he. "Oh! that's all," she replied; "thank
+you," and at once proceeded. She had not advanced many yards, when she
+came down heavily to the ground. The Earl had been observing all that had
+passed, from a few yards' distance, and he cried out, "There! now your
+Royal Highness has an explanation of the term 'slape,' both theoretically
+and practically." "Yes, my lord," she somewhat meekly said, "I think I
+have. I shall never forget the word 'slape.'" On a similar occasion, when
+cautioned not to frolic with a dog whose temper was not very reliable, she
+persisted in doing so, and he made a snap at her hand. Her cautioner ran
+solicitously, believing that she had been bitten. "Oh, thank you! thank
+you!" said she. "You're right, and I am wrong; but he didn't bite me--he
+only warned me. I shall be careful in future."
+
+[Sidenote: JUVENILE ANECDOTES.]
+
+The following incident shows that at least on some occasions a keen spirit
+of waggishness entered strongly into her self-will. When first she took
+lessons on the piano, she objected strongly to the monotonous fingering,
+as she had formerly done to A B C. She was, of course, informed that all
+success as a musician depended upon her first becoming "mistress of the
+piano."
+
+"Oh, I am to be mistress of my piano, am I?" asked she. To that the reply
+was a repetition of the statement.
+
+"Then what would you think of me if I became mistress at once?"
+
+"That would be impossible. There is no royal road to music. Experience and
+great practice are essential."
+
+"Oh, there is no royal road to music, eh? No royal road? And I am not
+mistress of my pianoforte? But I will be, I assure you; and the royal road
+is this"--at the same time closing the piano, locking it, and taking the
+key--"There! that's being mistress of the piano! and the royal road to
+learning is, never to take a lesson till you're in the humour to do it."
+
+After the laugh which her joke had provoked in herself and others had
+subsided, she at once volunteered to resume the lesson.
+
+We cannot more fitly conclude this chapter, ere we proceed to travel an
+important stage further in our attempt to trace the youthful days of the
+Queen, than by presenting a picture of her, as she appeared at this period
+of her life to the genial eyes of Leigh Hunt, to whom we have been
+already indebted at the commencement of this chapter:--
+
+    We remember well the peculiar kind of personal pleasure which it gave
+    us to see the future Queen, the first time we ever did see her, coming
+    up a cross path from the Bayswater Gate, with a girl of her own age by
+    her side, whose hand she was holding, as if she loved her. It brought
+    to our mind the warmth of our own juvenile friendships, and made us
+    fancy that she loved everything else that we had loved in like
+    measure--books, trees, verses, Arabian tales, and the good mother who
+    had helped to make her so affectionate. A magnificent footman, in
+    scarlet, came behind her, with the splendidest pair of calves, in
+    white stockings, that we had ever beheld. He looked somehow like a
+    gigantic fairy, personating, for his little lady's sake, the grandest
+    footman he could think of; and his calves he seemed to have made out
+    of a couple of the biggest chaise-lamps in the possession of the
+    godmother of Cinderella. As the Princess grew up, the world seemed
+    never to hear of her except as it wished to hear--that is to say, in
+    connection with her mother; and now it never hears of her but in
+    connection with children of her own, and her husband, and her mother
+    still [this was written in 1855], and all good household pleasures and
+    hospitalities, and public virtues of a piece with them. May life ever
+    continue to appear to her what, indeed, it really is to all who have
+    eyes for seeing beyond the surface--namely, a wondrous fairy scene,
+    strange, beautiful, mournful too, yet hopeful of being "happy ever
+    after," when its story is over; and wise, meantime, in seeing much
+    where others see nothing, in shedding its tears patiently, and in
+    doing its best to diminish the tears around it.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V.
+
+EDUCATION OF THE PRINCESS VICTORIA.
+
+    Additional Grant by Parliament for the Maintenance and Education of
+    the Princess--Wise Lessons learned at her Mother's Knees--A Visit to
+    George IV. at Windsor--Assiduous Pursuit of Knowledge--Accession of
+    William IV.--Victoria becomes next in succession to the Crown--Regency
+    Bill--Satisfaction of the good Grandmother at Coburg--Her Death--Joy
+    of Victoria at the Elevation of her Uncle to the Belgian
+    Throne--Parliamentary Inquiry into the Progress of her
+    Education--Satisfactory Report in Response--Presented at Court--Great
+    Ball on her Twelfth Birthday at St. James's Palace--Court Scandal and
+    Baseless Rumours--The Duchess of Northumberland appointed
+    Governess--The Princess and the Poet Southey.
+
+
+The time had now arrived when, in the opinion, not only of the private
+friends of the Duchess of Kent, but of the Ministers of the Crown, it was
+held that a more liberal provision should be made for the increasing cost
+of the training of the Princess, than the very moderate annual allowance
+which the Duchess of Kent had as yet received. This matter was formally
+brought before Parliament on the occasion of the Princess attaining her
+sixth birthday. Up to this date, and for some little time subsequently to
+it, King George IV. seems to have hardly paid the slightest heed to his
+niece and ultimate successor. On her fifth birthday, Prince Leopold, who
+throughout filled a true father's place, gave a banquet in her honour, at
+which most of the members of the English Royal Family, and the Prince
+Leiningen, son of the Duchess of Kent and half-brother of Victoria, were
+present. On this occasion, the child was much admired for her frankness,
+quickness, and talent, but especially for her deep attachment to her
+mother. Her mother took occasion to impress upon her the consideration
+that such attentions as those which were then shown her were rendered in
+the hope that she would cultivate the qualities and graces which alone
+could make her a worthy and acceptable ruler of the British empire. "It is
+not you," said she, "but your future office and rank which are regarded by
+the country; and you must so act as never to bring that office and that
+rank into disgrace or disrespect." And when the Duchess took her child to
+see for the first time the statue which had just been erected at the top
+of Portland Place to her father's memory, she was careful to make her know
+and feel that "dear papa's likeness was placed there, not merely because
+he was a prince, but because he was a good man, was kind to the poor,
+caused little boys and girls to be taught to read and write, helped to get
+money from good people to cure the sick, the lame, the blind, the deaf,
+and did all he could to make bad people good."
+
+In May, 1825, the sixth birthday of the Princess arrived. It became
+desirable, not merely to extend the sphere of her knowledge, but to
+introduce her to society at unavoidable expense; and, when she appeared in
+public and took trips in the country, to surround her with some of the
+splendour which properly belonged to her position. Accordingly, Lord
+Liverpool, the Premier, presented a Message from the King, requesting that
+some provision should be made for the Princess. His lordship spoke in the
+highest terms of the Duchess of Kent; eulogised her for having supported
+and educated her daughter without making any application to Parliament;
+and demonstrated, that her education must, from that date, be much more
+wide and costly. He proposed an additional grant of L6,000 per annum to
+the Duchess, to continue throughout the minority of her daughter. The
+House of Lords cordially acquiesced in the proposal. In the Lower House,
+Mr. Brougham, although uniting mother and daughter in one common eulogy,
+objected to the amount proposed. Mr. Hume supported him, suggesting an
+annuity increasing from year to year; but, on a division, the original
+proposal was carried by a majority of fifty.
+
+[Sidenote: GEORGE IV. AND THE PRINCESS VICTORIA.]
+
+Only after this formal act of national recognition does it appear that the
+King deigned to turn his personal attention in the direction of his niece.
+The year after, we find the Duchess of Coburg writing to her daughter, and
+referring to the fact that she had seen by the English papers, that "His
+Majesty, Her Royal Highness the Duchess of Kent, and the Princess
+Victoria, went on Virginia Water." "The little monkey," she writes, "must
+have pleased him. She is such a pretty, clever child." It was reported at
+the time that the King, on the occasion of this visit to Windsor, shared
+the general delight at the intelligence and sprightliness of his charming
+little niece. He caused her to dine in state with him, and when he asked
+her what tune she would like the band to play during dinner, she
+courteously and naively replied, "God save the King."
+
+The years intervening until 1830 were passed in almost complete quietude
+and seclusion by the Princess; her education being now most assiduously
+pursued.
+
+The year 1830 made an important difference in the position of the
+Princess. By the death of George IV., the Duke of Clarence became King,
+and--the Duke of York having died in 1827--she now stood next in direct
+succession to the throne. In the last month of the year a Regency Bill was
+passed, of which these were the chief provisions:--In the event of Queen
+Adelaide bearing a posthumous child, Her Majesty should be guardian and
+Regent during the minority. If that event should not occur, the Duchess of
+Kent was to be guardian and Regent during the minority of her daughter,
+the Princess Victoria, the heiress-presumptive. That Princess should not
+marry while a minor, without the consent of the King; or, if he died,
+without the consent of both Houses. When the Report of the Regency Bill
+was brought up, Lord Lyndhurst moved and carried a clause to the effect
+that in case the Duchess of Kent should marry a foreigner in the lifetime
+of His Majesty, but without his consent, she should, by that act, forfeit
+all pretensions to the Regency.
+
+The Duke of Buckingham, in his "Courts and Cabinets of William IV. and
+Victoria," thus remarked on this proviso:--
+
+    The position of the Princess attracted towards her Royal Highness the
+    solicitude and sympathy of all classes of the people. A proper
+    consideration of her chance of succeeding to the throne showed that
+    there was much at stake, and the bitter disappointment caused by the
+    untimely fate of the last female heiress presumptive, gave deeper
+    feeling to the interest with which she was regarded. It was desirable
+    that her youth should be, as much as possible, watched over to protect
+    it from all evil contingencies, and though there could not be a better
+    guardian for the Princess than the one nature had provided her with,
+    the anxiety of a nation demanded precautions that, under other
+    circumstances, would have been considered totally unnecessary. We can
+    now (1861) afford to smile on the jealous affection with which Her
+    Royal Highness was fenced round thirty years ago.
+
+[Sidenote: THE QUEEN'S GRANDMOTHER.]
+
+The satisfactory settlement of the Regency question gave great
+satisfaction to the good grandmother at Coburg. She wrote to her daughter,
+on receipt of the news--
+
+    I should have been sorry if the Regency had been given into other
+    hands than yours. It would not have been a just return for your
+    constant devotion and care to your child, if this had not been done.
+    May God give you wisdom and strength to do your duty, if called upon
+    to undertake it. May God bless and protect my little darling!--If I
+    could but once see her again! The print you have sent to me is not
+    like the dear picture I have; the quantity of curls hide the
+    well-shaped head, and make it look too large for the lovely little
+    figure.
+
+It was not fated that the Duchess of Coburg should ever see her
+granddaughter again; she died within a twelvemonth of writing the above.
+Her latest letters to her daughter were characterised by a peculiar warmth
+of affection for the Princess. Writing in the summer of 1830, on the
+occasion of Victoria's birthday, she said--
+
+    My blessings and good wishes for the day which gave you the sweet
+    Blossom of May! May God preserve and protect the valuable life of that
+    lovely flower from all the dangers that will beset her mind and heart!
+
+And when the news of the death of George IV. reached her, she wrote--
+
+    God bless Old England, where my beloved children live, and where the
+    sweet Blossom of May may one day reign! May God yet for many years
+    keep the weight of a crown from her young head, and let the
+    intelligent, clever child grow up to girlhood, before this dangerous
+    grandeur devolves upon her!
+
+England owes a deep debt of gratitude to this excellent and intelligent
+woman, for to her we are indebted for that training of her daughter, which
+fitted that daughter to train in turn, for us and for our advantage, Queen
+Victoria.
+
+An event of considerable influence upon the well-being and happiness of
+the Queen we must not omit to chronicle, ere we pass onwards in the course
+of our narrative. Prince Leopold had been designated by the great
+guaranteeing Powers as the ruler of the newly emancipated state of Greece.
+He was prepared to accept the position. This distressed his niece, who had
+been brought up under his kindly tutelage from her birth; but
+circumstances which it does not concern our purpose to dwell upon, induced
+Leopold to break off the Greek negotiation. Shortly after, to the great
+delight of Victoria, he was nominated by the Powers, and accepted by his
+future subjects, as King of the Belgians. This ensured his being
+constantly comparatively near to his niece. How frequent were his visits
+to England, as long as his life lasted, no resident in London needs to be
+informed; up till within the last few years, his face was almost as
+familiar in the parks as those of the members of the Queen's own family.
+He often appeared in London suddenly, and without announcement, having
+been summoned, it was generally believed, on such occasions, to consult
+with the Queen on some point of imminent moment. Such summonses he always
+responded to with instant alacrity.
+
+[Sidenote: ABSURD RUMOURS.]
+
+In the year 1831, the public became anxious to know how the education of
+the heiress-presumptive to the throne progressed; what was the nature of
+her studies, and which she preferred and most diligently pursued. Prompt,
+responsive, and satisfactory statements were rendered. It appeared that
+since the accession of King William, her tuition had been almost entirely
+entrusted to English teachers. Mr. Amos instructed her in the principles
+of the English Constitution, Mr. Westall in drawing; she had made
+considerable progress in Latin, and could read Horace with fluency. It was
+further stated that her love of music was enthusiastic, and that it was
+the orchestral rather than the dramatic attraction that caused her to
+frequent the theatres so much as she did. It was remarked that, on the
+occasion of the coronation of William IV., which took place on the 8th of
+September, neither the Princess nor her mother were present. Their absence
+was explained by the announcement, that the health of the Princess
+rendered a sojourn in the Isle of Wight necessary. Prudent persons held
+that, even had it been otherwise, her tender years and peculiar position
+rendered her absence preferable to her presence. She was but twelve years
+old, and it was commonly stated that only a year before had it been deemed
+wise _fully_ to make her aware of the regal destiny which was before her.
+Gossip-mongers--a whole host of whom circulated the most absurd rumours
+about the Princess from her most tender years until long after she had
+become Queen--alleged that the real reason of her absence was the fact
+that her proper place in the ceremony was not assigned to her. The real
+truth we believe to have been as follows. Since the accession of her uncle
+Clarence, Victoria had been plunged into a round of gaiety which did not
+at all comport either with her years or a certain fragility of health,
+which now for a short time succeeded the fine animal power and spirits of
+the years preceding. She had been presented at the first drawing-room held
+by Queen Adelaide, the most magnificent that had been held since the
+presentation of Charlotte, Princess of Wales, on the occasion of her
+marriage. This was her first appearance in state. She arrived with her
+mother, attended by the Duchess of Northumberland, Lady Charlotte St.
+Maur, Lady Catherine Jenkinson, the Honourable Mrs. Cust, Lady Conroy, the
+Baroness Lehzen, Sir J. Conroy, and General Wetherall. Her dress was made
+entirely of articles manufactured in Great Britain, and consisted of a
+simple, modest, and becoming blonde frock. She was the great object of
+interest present, stood on the left of the King, and contemplated the
+_elite_ of her future subjects with a dignified amiability which charmed
+every one. On her twelfth birthday, in the same year, she was overwhelmed
+with presents; amongst others, two beautiful ponies, presented by the
+Duchess of Gordon, which became especial pets. The Queen gave a juvenile
+ball in her honour, which Queen Victoria has often talked of in later
+times, as the scene which of all others made the deepest impression on her
+childish imagination. Spite of all this, and of the notorious and profuse
+kindness with which the King and Queen Adelaide had always treated her,
+many were found to believe that they were jealous of, and meant to slight
+her. The truth was, that the Duchess of Northumberland, who, at the
+suggestion of the King himself, had been appointed to the high and
+important office of governess to the Princess, began to be alarmed at the
+consequences of so much festivity and excitement. She objected to her
+frequent attendance at drawing-rooms, and also recommended absence from
+the fatiguing coronation ceremony.
+
+[Sidenote: THE PRINCESS AND SOUTHEY.]
+
+The selection of this lady for the important office which she filled was a
+wise one, and the public judgment approved it. She possessed great
+personal attractions, mental powers of unusual range, and the highest
+rank. The appointment was by no means a nominal one, or one merely of
+state. Her visits to Kensington Palace were constant, and she frequently
+remained there all day. On one occasion, while her Grace was instructing
+her pupil, Southey called, and was greeted by the Princess and the
+_gouvernante_ very warmly. He conversed for some time with the ladies;
+first on poetry, then on history. He afterwards used to state with pride,
+that the Princess told him that she read his prose and poetical
+compositions with equal delight. The "Life of Nelson" especially charmed
+her. "That," she said, "is a delightful book indeed; and I am sure I could
+read it half a dozen times over." The gossip-mongers also alleged that the
+Duchess endeavoured to give a political bias to the education of the
+Princess. Some uneasiness was created at this. But when the matter was
+properly inquired into, it was ascertained that, neither in the selection
+of books to be studied, nor in the remarks made upon their text, was the
+slightest party colour given to the education of the royal pupil of the
+Duchess. It was while under the care of this lady that the Princess
+acquired her well-known admirable horsemanship. To Fozard, the best
+riding-master of the day, was entrusted her tuition in riding. She soon
+became distinguished by the ease of her carriage, and her truly royal air
+and demeanour. This was a common subject of admiring remark by
+distinguished foreigners; amongst others, by Count Orloff, to whom, in
+1832, the Duchess of Kent gave a splendid banquet. The Princess, after she
+was removed from the active care of the Duchess of Northumberland, gave
+the best proof of her gratitude and sense of the services she had rendered
+her, by keeping up with her Grace a constant epistolary correspondence.
+Wherever she went, in the many tours through England which she made while
+passing through her teens, she wrote letters to the Duchess describing
+whatever interested and instructed her in what she saw. This
+correspondence was really a voluntary continuation of her education.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+THE PRINCESS IN HER TEENS.
+
+    Visits paid to many parts of England--Love of Cathedrals and Church
+    Music--Trip to North Wales and the Midland Counties--Visit to a Cotton
+    Mill--To Oxford--Gala Day at Southampton--Interview with the Young
+    Queen of Portugal--Confirmation of the Princess--Tour to the
+    North--York Musical Festival--At Ramsgate with the King of the
+    Belgians--A Noble Deed at Tunbridge Wells.
+
+
+In the year subsequent to the coronation of King William, the Duchess of
+Kent and her daughter spent much time in making visits to various parts of
+England. We have already seen that they were in the Isle of Wight at the
+date of the coronation. The same year, they spent some time at Worthing,
+and visited Lord Liverpool and his daughters at Buxted Park, whence they
+proceeded to Malvern, where their liberal relief of distress caused them
+to be much beloved. While at Malvern, they visited the cathedral at
+Worcester. Cathedrals were especial favourites with the Princess, and
+Church music gratified her as much as ecclesiastical architecture. To the
+public institutions of the cathedral cities which she visited she was an
+invariable benefactress, and willingly beggared herself of all her
+pocket-money that she might be the better able to meet the demands of art,
+science, literature, and poverty upon her benevolence. This year they also
+visited Hereford and Bath, and were magnificently entertained by the Earls
+Somers and Beauchamp, at Eastnor Castle and Maddresfield Court.
+
+[Sidenote: AN AUTUMNAL TOUR.]
+
+In 1831, they sojourned for a time at Claremont, in the Isle of Wight, and
+at Weymouth. The next year chronicled a more extensive autumnal tour than
+any hitherto undertaken. To North Wales they repaired first. Having seen
+its romantic beauties, they reached the ancient city of Chester on the
+17th of October and on entering the cathedral were respectfully received
+and courteously addressed by the Bishop. The Duchess of Kent thus replied
+to the welcome of the Prelate:--"I cannot better allude to your good
+feeling towards the Princess than by joining fervently in the wish that
+she may set an example in her conduct of that piety towards God, and
+charity towards man, which is the only sure foundation either of
+individual happiness or national prosperity." From Chester they proceeded
+to Eaton Hall, the palatial residence of the Grosvenors and thence to
+Chatsworth, the still more splendid abode of the Cavendish family. From
+Chatsworth they went to Belper, where they examined the cotton mills of
+the Messrs. Strutt, and were most cordially received by the numerous
+factory hands. Mr. James Strutt, by means of a model, explained to the
+Princess the several processes of cotton-spinning, which she listened to
+with keen attention and ready apprehension. The Queen retained a lively
+and fragrant recollection of this visit; and, years after, she created the
+son of her _cicerone_ a peer, by the title of Lord Belper. The week
+following they visited Hardwicke Hall, Chesterfield, and Matlock. Thence
+they proceeded to Shugborough, the seat of the Earl of Lichfield. Their
+next honoured entertainer was the Earl of Shrewsbury, at Alton Towers.
+While there, they visited Lichfield Cathedral and graciously received
+congratulatory addresses from the clergy and corporation. Their next stage
+was the seat of Lord Liverpool, who was one of the staunchest friends of
+the Duchess of Kent, of whom his daughter, Lady Catherine Jenkinson, was
+one of the Ladies-in-waiting. Proceeding homewards, they honoured with
+successive visits Earl Powis, the Hon. R. H. Clive, M.P., the Earls of
+Plymouth and Abingdon. From the seat of the latter they went to Oxford,
+which city they entered with an escort of yeomanry. The Vice-Chancellor
+presented an appropriate address in the Theatre, which was crowded with
+the celebrities of the University. The Duchess of Kent made the following
+answer:--
+
+    We close a most interesting journey by a visit to this University,
+    that the Princess may see, as far as her years will allow, all that is
+    interesting in it. The history of our country has taught her to know
+    its importance by the many distinguished persons who, by their
+    character and talents, have been raised to eminence by the education
+    they have received in it. Your loyalty to the King, and recollection
+    of the favour you have enjoyed under the paternal sway of his house,
+    could not fail, I was sure, to lead you to receive his niece with all
+    the disposition you evince to make this visit agreeable and
+    instructive to her. It is my object to insure, by all means in my
+    power, her being so educated as to meet the just expectation of all
+    classes in this great and free country.
+
+Their Royal Highnesses returned to Kensington on the 9th of November.
+
+In 1833, the rambles of mother and daughter did not extend beyond the
+south coast; Portsmouth, Weymouth, and the Isle of Wight being the
+respective halting-places. While residing at Norris, East Cowes, they
+attended the ceremony of opening the new landing-pier at the fast rising
+port of Southampton. A steamer towed the Royal yacht from Cowes into
+Southampton Water, where were waiting a deputation, representing the
+corporation of the town, in an eight-oared barge, with one of the
+town-sergeants standing with the silver oar in the leads. The deputation
+having stated the object of the day's ceremonial, the Duchess of Kent
+replied to the effect that she desired her daughter early to become
+attached to works of utility. They were then rowed ashore, amid the cheers
+of 25,000 spectators, and entertained at luncheon; subsequently, being
+requested to name the pier, the Duchess designated it the "Royal Pier."
+Countless festivities followed in the evening, and "the townspeople were
+almost as proud of the presence of the Princess, as of the completion of
+their pier."
+
+[Sidenote: THE PRINCESS AND A WIDOWED ACTRESS.]
+
+The year 1834 was that in which the Princess was confirmed. This holy rite
+was administered by the Archbishop of Canterbury, in the Chapel Royal, St.
+James's, in July. Next month, mother and daughter visited Tunbridge Wells;
+the month following they went northwards, visited the Archbishop of York
+at Bishopsthorpe, and attended the grand musical festival in his
+cathedral. On their homeward route, they were entertained by the Earls of
+Harewood and Fitzwilliam, and the Duke of Rutland; passed some time with
+the King and Queen of the Belgians, at Ramsgate, and finally visited the
+Duke of Wellington at Walmer Castle. An incident which occurred during
+their stay at Tunbridge, must not be omitted from our biography. The
+husband of one of the actresses in the small theatre of the place died,
+leaving an impoverished wife, who was just about to become a mother. The
+fact came to the knowledge of the Princess, and she applied to her mother
+for aid. She at once gave L10 to her daughter, who added an equal sum from
+her own purse; she became her own almoner, hastened to the afflicted
+woman, conversed with her, and continued to make inquiries about her
+condition. Nor did this end her care. When she came to the throne, three
+years later, she at once sent to the poor woman a kindly intimation that
+an annuity of L40 would be paid to her for life.
+
+Another series of visits, and renewed intercourse with the much-loved
+uncle and his young Orleanist wife at Ramsgate, filled the autumnal months
+of 1835.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII.
+
+EARLY DAYS OF PRINCE ALBERT.
+
+    Birth--Melancholy Story of his Mother--Brought up under the Care of
+    his two Excellent Grandmothers--His Winning Ways as a Child--His
+    Tutor, Florschuetz--The Brothers, Ernest and Albert--Visit to Brussels,
+    and its Beneficial Effects--Hard Study--Tour through Germany,
+    &c.--First Visit to England, and Meeting with Victoria--Studies at
+    Brussels--Enters the University of Bonn--Tour to Switzerland and
+    Italy--Public Announcement of Betrothal--Leaves Coburg and Gotha for
+    his Marriage.
+
+
+[Sidenote: THE INFANT COUSINS VICTORIA AND ALBERT.]
+
+Albert, the second son of Duke Ernest I. of Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld, and his
+wife, the Princess Louise, daughter of the Duke of Saxe-Gotha-Altenburg,
+was born at the Rosenau, a charming summer residence belonging to the
+Duke, about four miles from Coburg, on the 26th of August, 1819. His
+mother is described as handsome, though of very diminutive proportions,
+fair, with blue eyes; and her son Albert, whom she idolised, closely
+resembled her. She was clever and entertaining; yet her marriage was an
+unhappy one, and a separation took place by mutual consent in 1824, after
+which date the Duchess never saw her children. Two years later the
+separation was turned into a divorce. The Prince never forgot her, but
+spoke of her to his dying day with much tenderness, and the very first
+gift which he ever made to the Princess Victoria was a little pin which
+his mother had given him. Not until the Prince was almost a young man did
+his mother die. When she died her race became extinct, save in the
+persons of her two sons. Many years later, her remains were brought to
+Coburg, and laid in the family mausoleum beside the Duke and his second
+wife. This mausoleum was not completed until 1860, in which year Queen
+Victoria deposited a votive wreath on the tomb of the mother of her
+husband. Prince Albert's paternal grandmother, the Duchess Dowager of
+Coburg, in writing to her daughter, the Duchess of Kent, announcing
+Albert's birth, lauded his beauty, and--little thinking how the fortunes
+of the two infant cousins were to be intertwined hereafter--thus concluded
+her communication:--"How pretty the _May Flower_ (the Princess Victoria,
+born the preceding May) will be when I see it in a year's time. Siebold
+cannot sufficiently describe what a dear little love it is. Une bonne
+fois, adieu! Kiss your husband and children." Siebold was an accoucheuse
+who had attended at the births of both the children. On the 19th of
+September the Prince was christened, and thus named:--Francis Charles
+Augustus Albert Emmanuel.
+
+The young Prince seems to have been adored as a child by all, whether
+relatives or others, who came in contact with him. "He leads captive,"
+said his fond mother, when he was two years old, "all hearts by his beauty
+and gentle grace." After the sad separation of his father from his mother,
+the Prince was brought up largely under the care of his father's mother,
+whom the Queen describes, from personal recollection, as "a most
+remarkable woman, with a most powerful, energetic, almost masculine mind,
+accompanied with great tenderness of heart, and extreme love for nature."
+Of an evening she used to tell to her two grandchildren, Ernest and
+Albert, the stories of Sir Walter Scott's novels, and, when they were old
+enough, employed them in writing letters to her dictation. She fondly
+described Albert, when he was not yet two years old, by the pet,
+diminutive name, "Alberinchen." And she says--"With his large blue eyes
+and dimpled cheeks, he is bewitching, forward, and quick as a weasel. He
+can already say everything." The step-maternal grandmother of the Prince
+too, second wife of his maternal grandfather, was sensible, kindly, and
+good, and took an interest in the children by no means inferior to that
+displayed by their own grandmother. With the former lady they spent very
+much of their time in their early years, at Gotha, and at her mansion in
+the vicinity of that town.
+
+When Albert was not yet four years old he, with his brother, was removed
+to the care of a tutor, Herr Florschuetz, who most admirably discharged his
+duties, which he continued to fulfil until his pupils had become young
+men. With the assistance of masters for special subjects, he conducted the
+whole of their early educational training, and continued to control their
+studies until they left the University of Bonn. The two brothers, spite of
+the difference of about a twelvemonth in their ages, pursued all studies
+in common, and the closest brotherly love and amity united them from first
+to last.
+
+[Sidenote: BOYHOOD OF PRINCE ALBERT]
+
+The younger Prince was not nearly so robust as his brother, but his
+intellect was more vigorous, and his force of will decidedly greater; "he
+always held," said his uncle Leopold, "accordingly, a certain sway over
+his elder brother, who rather kindly submitted to it." The Princes were
+not much, in their early years, with their father, who was much from home,
+especially when settling the junction of the duchy of Gotha with his own
+of Coburg. The former he succeeded to partly in right of his wife, and
+partly by a mutual compact of exchange of territory, entered into with
+other reigning princes of the old Saxon stock. This period was passed by
+the Princes at Rosenau, with their tutor, varied by visits to the mansions
+of the two grandmothers.
+
+In a memorandum drawn up by Count Arthur Mensdorff, cousin of the Prince,
+he describes the young Albert when about ten years of age, at which period
+the cousins contracted a friendship which lasted unimpaired until the
+Prince's death. His disposition was mild and benevolent; nothing could
+make him angry, except anything unjust or dishonest. He was never wild or
+noisy, and his favourite study was natural history. He was a good mimic,
+and had a keen sense of the ludicrous; but he never pushed a joke to the
+extent of hurting one's feelings. His moral purity was as conspicuous as
+the meekness of his disposition.
+
+In November of 1831, the Princes suffered a great bereavement in the death
+of their admirable grandmother, the Duchess Dowager of Coburg; she died in
+the arms of her two eldest sons. She had, from an early period, formed the
+wish that a marriage should be contracted between her two grandchildren,
+Albert and Victoria.
+
+In 1832, the young Princes, in their turn, accompanied their father in a
+journey to visit their uncle, King Leopold. This was a most important
+event in the Prince's life; for, though the visit was of but short
+duration, the spectacle which he then saw, of a nation which had freed
+itself, and worked out its own destiny, had the strongest effect upon his
+mind and conscience, which thence grew in attachment to liberal
+principles. His deeply-rooted love of art, too, received a strong stimulus
+from the splendid architectural and artistic treasures of the old Belgian
+city. On his return from Brussels, being now about thirteen years old, he
+became remarkably studious, and vigorously set himself to the pursuit of
+an unusually comprehensive circle of subjects.
+
+The only recreation which he pursued with vigour was deer-stalking, and
+this most beneficially promoted the robustness of a frame as yet
+distinguished by delicacy. On Palm Sunday, 1835, he was confirmed, and his
+heart seems, at and from this period, to have come under the influence of
+religious convictions of peculiar depth and sincerity, though of singular
+freedom from all traces of bigotry.
+
+The confirmation of the Princes was immediately followed by a series of
+visits to various of their imperial, regal, princely, and noble relatives
+and friends throughout Germany and the provinces on the Danube. They
+visited in succession Mecklenburg, Berlin, Dresden, Prague, Vienna, Pesth,
+and Ofen. In May, 1836, the Princes came to England, on a visit to their
+aunt Kent. It was on this occasion that Albert and Victoria first met.
+
+On his return to the Continent from this his first and most gratifying
+visit to England, the Duke of Coburg placed Albert and his elder brother
+for a time under the care of their uncle at Brussels. A private house was
+taken for them, in which they pursued their studies under Dr. Drury, an
+English clergyman, who had been appointed their tutor. This gentleman
+recorded this testimony of his pupil, when, shortly afterwards, he was
+removed from his tutelage, and before any idea was entertained about his
+distinguished future position:--"His attainments are various, and solid
+too; his abilities are superior; his disposition amiable; his conduct
+unexceptionable; and, above all, his belief in, and his attachment to, the
+Protestant religion is sincere."
+
+[Sidenote: PRINCE ALBERT AT COLLEGE.]
+
+In the summer following (1837) the two brothers were entered as students
+of law, or, more correctly, of jurisprudence (_juris studiosi_), at the
+University of Bonn, the Oxford of Germany in respect to the high rank of
+some of its students, and standing in the very first place in point of
+intrinsic efficiency. The tutor Florschuetz still accompanied the young
+men; and they benefited by the prelections of such men as Fichte, Perthes,
+and Augustus Schlegel. Prince Albert studied classics, mathematics, mental
+philosophy, political economy, history, and statistical science. In the
+last subject he had been well grounded at Brussels by the distinguished M.
+Quetelet, who formed the highest opinion of his pupil's powers and
+assiduity. He had, besides, private tutors for music and drawing, in both
+of which arts he was already well advanced. In the second stage of his
+curriculum his studies were specially devoted to jurisprudence and civil
+history. While at Bonn he displayed at once a talent for poetry and a
+benevolent heart, by the publication for the benefit of the poor of a
+collection of songs, which his brother set to meritorious musical
+accompaniments. He visited only among his princely fellow-students, and at
+the houses of the professors. His brother and he, though they occasionally
+gave courtly entertainments to their friends, lived in private a
+temperate and frugal life. He assiduously sought out the society of
+_savans_ and men of letters, especially loving to associate with
+Professors Welcker and Schlegel. The latter, though he detested the
+ordinary run of "princelings," was quite charmed by Albert, of whom he
+thought and spoke most highly. The Prince kept only three academical
+terms, and finally left the University, in September, 1838, leaving golden
+opinions everywhere behind him. Not the least hearty of his eulogists in
+after years was Peter Stamm, an hotel-keeper, who acted as gamekeeper to
+him on his shooting excursions, and who for years after pointed to English
+visitors the portrait of Prince Albert in his sitting-room, his eyes the
+while brimming over with glad tears. The University, after his marriage,
+conferred upon him the honorary degree of Doctor of Laws, and in the
+diploma pointed reference was made to his "summae fortunae magnitudinem ac
+gravitatem, summa comitate, amabilique morum suavitate et humanitate."
+
+The winter of 1838-9 was passed by the Prince in a tour through
+Switzerland and Italy. After pursuing his journey as far as Naples, and
+omitting no locality of interest on the way, he came home by way of
+Vienna, and returned to the Castle of Ehrenberg in the summer of 1839. It
+has been stated that he found, on the wall of his room, a miniature of
+Queen Victoria, by Chalon, which she had sent to him as a gift in his
+absence; but we have not discovered any very reliable authority for the
+anecdote. In August, having completed his twentieth year, he was formally
+declared of age. He inherited from his mother landed estates amounting to
+L2,400 yearly value. These lands, we have reason to believe, he
+transferred to his brother upon the formal announcement of his engagement
+to Queen Victoria, subject only to pensions and allowances to certain
+persons who had belonged to his modest household.
+
+[Sidenote: PRINCE ALBERT'S BETROTHAL.]
+
+On the 8th of December, 1839, his betrothal was formally and publicly
+announced at Coburg. In the morning the Ducal family, with the Court
+officials, attended Divine service in the chapel of the Castle; in the
+afternoon, in the presence of the same dignitaries, with the deputies of
+the Duchies of Coburg and Gotha, the Chief Minister formally read the
+announcement of the betrothal; the while the booming of cannon from the
+fortress announced the tidings to the people of the town and the
+neighbouring country. About three hundred persons in all were present at
+the ceremony within the Castle, including bearers of congratulatory
+addresses, not only from the two duchies, but from Austria, Prussia,
+Hesse, Saxony, and other German states. From the report of an English
+gentleman of high social position, who was present on this important
+occasion, we extract, in conclusion, these fuller details:--
+
+    When the Minister (Baron de Carlowitz) had read the proclamation, the
+    Duke embraced his son, and the Duchess next imprinted a kiss upon his
+    forehead, while in every eye might be read the heartfelt wish that all
+    the parents' fondest, proudest hopes might be fully realised. More
+    than one hundred and sixty persons partook of the hospitalities of the
+    Duke's table, in the "Riesen Saal," or "Giant's Hall," and a more
+    sumptuous or splendid entertainment could not be imagined. The loud
+    and cordial cheers which the health of England's Queen called forth,
+    and which burst out with an enthusiasm which all the forms of
+    etiquette and courtly ceremony could not restrain, were almost too
+    affecting; and when the band struck up "God save the Queen," the tears
+    of joy flowed freely. I must not omit to mention a circumstance
+    characteristic of the Prince. By his order, the people were admitted
+    into the "Riesen Saal," to see the assembled company. Peasants from
+    the hills, old and young, walked about without the smallest restraint,
+    to their evident enjoyment; and their hearty exclamations--the
+    blessings they invoked on their beloved Prince and his august
+    parents--were a more eloquent and stirring panegyric than volumes
+    could express. To describe the universal attachment of all classes to
+    the Prince were impossible. I have never heard other than the most
+    enthusiastic praise--not one dissenting voice from one end of
+    Thuringia to the other. If I have remarked the personal beauty of the
+    Prince, the general reply has been, "Ah! yes, he is certainly
+    handsome, but so good; he is truly a most amiable prince, as good as
+    he is handsome." Persons attached to his suite, and the older members
+    of the Court, cannot speak of him without tears, and are quite
+    distressed at the thought of his leaving his native land.... On the
+    28th of December the Prince, accompanied by his father, quitted his
+    paternal residence for a short sojourn at Gotha; and as he bade a last
+    adieu to the stately castle of Ehrenberg, the abode of his fathers,
+    and the happy scene of his infancy, the tenderest emotions of his
+    nature for a moment almost overwhelmed him. A few days prior to his
+    departure, a ball was given him by the nobles, at which he was
+    received by twelve young ladies, attired in white, and wearing
+    fresh-gathered roses; the Philosophic Society gave him a serenade, and
+    all classes joined in affectionate expression of sympathy in their
+    young Prince's feelings on this momentous occasion.
+
+Lord Viscount Torrington and Colonel the Honourable Charles Grey, who were
+charged with the two-fold mission of investing the Prince with the
+insignia of the Order of the Garter, and escorting him and his suite to
+England, arrived at Gotha early in January, 1840, and the investiture took
+place on the 24th, with imposing ceremony. The jewels, which were of
+diamonds and of rare workmanship, were a present from the Queen. After a
+series of hospitable festivities in honour of the English envoys, Prince
+Albert set out for England on the 28th of the month.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII.
+
+THE PRINCESS VICTORIA BECOMES QUEEN REGNANT.
+
+    First Meeting of the Princess Victoria and Prince Albert--Coming of
+    Age--Festivities on the Occasion--Death of William IV., and Accession
+    of Victoria--The Queen holds her First Privy Council--Her
+    Address--Proclamation as Queen at St. James's Palace--Beautiful Traits
+    of Character displayed by the Queen--Stirring and Gorgeous
+    Scene--Delight of the People at the Queen's Accession.
+
+
+The marriage of Prince Albert with the Princess Victoria was desired, if
+not planned, by certain of their common relatives, especially the Duchess
+Dowager of Coburg and her son Prince Leopold, almost from the period when
+the cousins were in their cradles. After his betrothal, the Prince himself
+told the Queen that his mother, who died in 1831, wished earnestly that he
+should marry her. He first saw his future wife in the month of May, 1836,
+when he and his brother came to England on a visit to their aunt. He
+greatly enjoyed this visit to England, and the youthful guests were
+treated by the authorities and the inhabitants of the metropolis with the
+utmost courtesy and attention. They were sumptuously entertained at
+Windsor by the King and Queen Adelaide, and were conducted to all the
+great sights of the town by their aunt and cousin.
+
+On the 24th of May, 1837, the Princess Victoria having attained her
+eighteenth year, was declared legally of age, according to the provisions
+of a recent Act of Parliament. Amongst the first to congratulate her on
+the happy event was Prince Albert. This happy day was kept as a general
+holiday, and the night made brilliant by an illumination. It was
+celebrated with demonstrations of excessive joy at Kensington. At six
+o'clock in the morning the union-jack was hoisted on the steeple of the
+old church, as also on the green sward opposite the Palace. That edifice
+was surmounted by a splendid flag of pure white silk, on which was
+inscribed, in letters of ethereal blue, the single word "Victoria." From
+the houses of the principal inhabitants in the High Street waved a
+profusion of other flags. The gates of the Gardens were thrown open at six
+o'clock for the admission of the public; and it having got wind the
+previous evening that a serenade would be performed at seven o'clock, at
+which hour Victoria first drew breath eighteen years before, the portion
+of the Gardens next the Palace was thronged by an assemblage of
+well-dressed persons, including several ladies. Congratulatory addresses
+and innumerable presents--amongst the latter, a splendid piano from the
+King--poured in from all quarters. At night a magnificent ball in honour
+of the occasion was given at St. James's Palace.
+
+During these festivities, although it was known that the King's health was
+seriously enfeebled, no one imagined that within a month from the
+attainment of her majority the young Princess would become Queen of
+England. The anniversary of Waterloo was always a great day with King
+William. The Duke of Wellington, in consideration of the declining state
+of the King's health, proposed not to have the usual banquet at Apsley
+House; but, the day before, William, sent a message desiring that the
+banquet should take place, and wishing the host and guests a pleasant day.
+By two o'clock on the morning of the 20th he was no more.
+
+[Sidenote: ACCESSION TO THE THRONE.]
+
+Shortly after the demise of the Sovereign, three carriages, conveying the
+Primate, the Earl of Albemarle and Sir Henry Halford, the Royal physician,
+started from Windsor, and arrived at Kensington Palace shortly before five
+o'clock. The doors were thrown open before them, and in the early morning
+sunshine stood the Queen of England and her mother, prepared for the news,
+and ready to receive them. At nine o'clock, Lord Melbourne, the Premier,
+arrived at the Palace, and had an interview of half an hour with his new
+mistress. Before noon came the Lord Mayor and other members of the
+Corporation. Next to appear was the Duke of Cumberland. Miss Martineau
+thus describes the quick succession of incidents which now crowded one
+upon the other with rapid haste:--
+
+    On the meeting of the princes, peers, and other councillors, they
+    signed the oath of allegiance; and the first name on the list was that
+    of Ernest, King of Hanover. The Queen caused them all to be sworn in
+    Members of the Council, and then addressed them; after which they
+    issued orders for the Proclamation of Her Majesty. If the millions who
+    longed to know how the young Sovereign looked and felt could have
+    heard her first address, it would have gone far to satisfy them. The
+    address was, of course, prepared for her; but the manner and voice
+    were her own, and they told much. Her manner was composed, modest, and
+    dignified; her voice firm and sweet; her reading, as usual, beautiful.
+    She took the necessary oaths, and received the eager homage of the
+    thronging nobility without agitation or any awkwardness. The
+    declaration contained an affectionate reference to the deceased King;
+    an assertion of her attachment to the constitution of the country, and
+    of her intention to rule in accordance with it; a grateful allusion to
+    her mother's educational care of her; an avowal that, under
+    circumstances of such eminent responsibility as hers, she relied for
+    support and guidance in Divine Providence, and a pledge that her life
+    should be devoted to the happiness of her people. The Ministers
+    returned into her hands, and received again, the seals of their
+    respective offices; the stamps in official use were ordered to be
+    altered, as also the prayers of the Church which related to the Royal
+    Family; the Proclamation was prepared and signed by the Privy
+    Councillors, and the Queen appointed the next day, Wednesday, for the
+    ceremony. The first use of the Great Seal, under the new reign, was to
+    authenticate the official Proclamation, which was gazetted the same
+    evening. During the whole morning, carriages were driving up rapidly,
+    bringing visitors eager to offer their homage. What a day of whirl and
+    fatigue for one in a position so lonely, at such tender years. How
+    welcome must have been the night, and the quiet of her pillow,
+    whatever might be the thoughts that rested upon it. The next morning
+    she appeared "extremely pale and fatigued," and no wonder, for she had
+    passed through a day which could never be paralleled.
+
+The following is the text of her Majesty's speech delivered on this
+occasion to the Privy Council:--
+
+    The severe and afflicting loss which the nation has sustained by the
+    death of His Majesty, my beloved uncle, has devolved upon me the duty
+    of administering the Government of this empire. This awful
+    responsibility is imposed upon me so suddenly, and at so early a
+    period, that I should feel myself utterly oppressed by the burden,
+    were I not sustained by the hope that Divine Providence, which has
+    called me to this work, will give me strength for the performance of
+    it, and that I shall find, in the purity of my intentions, and in my
+    zeal for the public welfare, that support and those resources which
+    usually belong to a more mature age and longer experience. I place my
+    firm reliance upon the wisdom of Parliament, and upon the loyalty and
+    affection of my people. I esteem it also a peculiar advantage that I
+    succeed to a sovereign whose constant regard for the rights and
+    liberties of his subjects, and whose desire to promote the
+    amelioration of the laws and institutions of the country, have
+    rendered his name the object of general attachment and veneration.
+    Educated in England, under the tender and affectionate care of a most
+    affectionate mother, I have learned from my infancy to respect and
+    love the constitution of my native country. It will be my unceasing
+    study to maintain the reformed religion as by law established,
+    securing, at the same time, to all the full enjoyment of religious
+    liberty; and I shall steadily protect the rights, and promote to the
+    utmost of my power the happiness and welfare of all classes of my
+    subjects.
+
+[Sidenote: PROCLAMATION AS QUEEN.]
+
+The next day, the 21st of June, the Queen was publicly proclaimed, under
+the title of Alexandrina Victoria I.; but since that day she has disused
+the Russian name bestowed upon her by her Muscovite godfather, preferring
+to retain simply "Victoria." The Queen arrived at the Palace at ten
+o'clock, where she was received by most of the members of the Royal
+Family, the Officers of the Household, and Ministers of State. Long before
+ten all the avenues to the Palace were crowded, every balcony, window, and
+housetop being crammed with the better class of spectators. The space in
+the quadrangle in front of the window where Her Majesty was to appear, was
+crowded with ladies and gentlemen, and even the parapets above were filled
+with people.
+
+At ten o'clock the guns in the Park fired a salute, and immediately after
+the Queen made her appearance at the window of the tapestried ante-room
+adjoining the audience chamber, and was received with deafening
+cheers--cheers all the more hearty that her appearance was a surprise, for
+few had known that she was to be there present. She was dressed in deep
+mourning, with a white tippet, white cuffs, and a border of white lace
+under a small black bonnet, which was placed far back on her head,
+exhibiting her light brown hair simply parted in front. She viewed the
+proceedings with intense interest, standing during the whole rehearsal of
+the Proclamation; and although she looked pale and fatigued, she returned
+the repeated rounds of cheers with great grace and dignity. All were
+touched to very tenderness of soul by the pale face, wet with tears, calm
+and simply grave, the gravity being enhanced by the plain black dress and
+bands of brown hair, giving an aspect of Quaker-like neatness. On either
+side stood Lords Melbourne and Lansdowne, in their state dresses and blue
+ribbons, and close to her was her mother, who was dressed similarly to the
+Queen.
+
+In the court-yard were Garter King-at-Arms, with Heralds and Pursuivants
+in their robes of office, and eight Officers-of-Arms on horseback, bearing
+massive silver maces; Sergeants-at-Arms, with their maces and collars; the
+Sergeant-Trumpeter, with his mace and collar; the trumpets, drum-major and
+drums, and Knights Marshal and men. On Her Majesty showing herself at the
+Presence Chamber window, Garter Principal King-at-Arms, having taken his
+station in the court-yard under the window, accompanied by the Duke of
+Norfolk as Earl Marshal of England, read the Proclamation, containing the
+formal and official announcement of the demise of King William IV., and of
+the consequent accession of Queen Alexandrina Victoria to the rule of
+these realms. The Proclamation was brief, and to the point:--
+
+    Whereas it hath pleased Almighty God to call to His mercy our late
+    Sovereign Lord, King William IV., of blessed memory, by whose decease
+    the Imperial Crown of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland
+    is solely and rightfully come to the High and Mighty Princess
+    Alexandrina Victoria, we therefore, the Lords Spiritual and Temporal
+    of this Realm, being here assisted with these of his late Majesty's
+    Privy Council, with numbers of other principal gentlemen of quality,
+    the Lord Mayor, Aldermen, and citizens of London, do now hereby with
+    one voice and consent of tongue, proclaim that the High and Mighty
+    Princess Alexandrina Victoria is now, by the death of our late
+    Sovereign William IV., of happy memory, become our only lawful and
+    rightful Liege Lady, Alexandrina Victoria I., Queen of Great Britain
+    and Ireland, Defender of the Faith, ... to whom we acknowledge all
+    faith and constant obedience, with all humble and hearty affection,
+    beseeching God, by whom Kings and Queens do reign, to bless the Royal
+    Princess Alexandrina Victoria with long and happy years to reign. God
+    Save the Queen.
+
+[Sidenote: THE QUEEN AND THE DUKE OF SUSSEX.]
+
+At the termination of this Proclamation, the band struck up the National
+Anthem, and a signal was given for the Park and Tower guns to fire, in
+order to announce the fact of the Proclamation being made. Amid the
+booming of the guns, the air was rent with cheers by those within the
+area, which were taken up by the tens of thousands outside. The enthusiasm
+of the comparative few who could see Victoria rose to rapture when, the
+moment she was proclaimed Queen, she turned round, threw her arms round
+her mother's neck, and wept without restraint. And when her loved uncle,
+the Duke of Sussex, presented himself, the day before, to take the oath of
+allegiance, and was about to kneel in her presence to kiss her hand, she
+gracefully prevented him, kissed his cheek affectionately, and said, "Do
+not kneel, my uncle, for I am still Victoria, your niece."
+
+The feelings of gratification with which the people welcomed the accession
+of Victoria cannot be depicted in terms too strong. To most, the course of
+years seemed very short during which they had been eagerly watching the
+growth and training of the Princess. It seemed--at least, to all but the
+young--but a matter of yesterday that the newspapers had informed them of
+the birth of the Royal babe; of the Duke of Kent's illness: how he had
+come home from a walk with wet boots, and, "beguiled by the smiles of his
+infant Princess," had played with her, instead of changing his clothes,
+and thus caught the cold of which he died. And here she was now, a woman,
+and the sovereign ruler of a hundred million of souls. All they had heard
+of her was favourable. Sinister rumours and alarms there had been, but
+they had been dissipated and dispersed like the morning's mist before the
+rising god of day. Her morals were pure, her conduct spotless, and in all
+arts and accomplishments she had been carefully trained. From her earliest
+days she had been abroad in all weathers; having been often seen, when it
+was stormy, on a windy common, with a warm cloak and thick boots. She kept
+early hours, and was so exactly and proverbially punctual, that it was
+mentioned as a marvel that she once had to apologise for being half a
+minute late in an appointment. She had never been known to exceed her
+pocket-money in her personal expenditure, or to be sixpence in debt--an
+extraordinary novelty in a descendant of George III.
+
+In the first year of her reign the people were delighted to find that she
+had paid her father's debts, including considerable sums advanced by his
+warm friends, Lords Fitzwilliam and Dundas. Next she paid her mother's
+debts--debts unavoidably contracted, as she knew and acknowledged, on her
+account. She provided with royal munificence for the whole family of the
+late sovereign, and honoured them with courtesies and kindnesses, which
+almost obliterated the pain arising from their dubious position. Yet she
+lived within her income, and paid as she purchased.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX.
+
+THE MAIDEN QUEEN.
+
+    Removal to Buckingham Palace--First Levee--Dissolves
+    Parliament--Beauty of her Elocution--Splendid Reception by the City of
+    London--Settlement of the Queen's Income--Her Daily Life--Her
+    admirable Knowledge of, and Devotion to, the Business of the
+    State--Reverence for the Lord's Day.
+
+
+Greatly to the regret of the inhabitants of Kensington, the Queen, with
+her mother, took her final departure from the abode where she was born,
+and in which she had spent so many happy days, and proceeded to Buckingham
+Palace, on July 13th. The Queen, on this occasion, looked pale, and her
+countenance had a very natural, and easily accounted for, aspect of deep
+regret. Immediately afterwards she held a Court Levee. It was, of course,
+thronged by her loyal subjects who had the privilege of entree; but there
+was no appearance of fatigue in her face, voice, or manner, and the day
+passed off with spirit and brilliancy. She seemed to have acquired (so say
+the court chroniclers of the period), if possible, increased grace and
+dignity. She wore a rich lama dress, her head glittered with diamonds, and
+her breast was covered with the insignia of the Garter and other orders. A
+pair of embroidered velvet slippers covered feet which, resting on the
+cushion, were observed and admired by all as "exquisitely small."
+
+On the 17th of July she went in state to the House of Lords to dissolve
+the Parliament, in accordance with constitutional usage and enactment on
+the demise of the Crown. After thanking both Houses for their expressions
+of condolence on the death of her uncle, and for the zeal and assiduity
+with which they had discharged their duties, especially for their efforts
+to mitigate the severity of the penal code, she concluded by saying:--
+
+    I ascend the throne with a deep sense of the responsibility which is
+    imposed upon me; but I am supported by the consciousness of my own
+    right intentions, and by my dependence upon the protection of Almighty
+    God. It will be my care to strengthen our institutions, civil and
+    ecclesiastical, by discreet improvement wherever improvement is
+    required, and to do all in my power to compose and allay animosity and
+    discord. Acting upon these principles, I shall, upon all occasions,
+    look with confidence to the wisdom of Parliament and the affections of
+    my people, which form the true support of the dignity of the Crown,
+    and ensure the stability of the Constitution.
+
+The admirable manner in which the speech was read--her singularly musical
+voice being heard, without the slightest appearance of effort, in every
+corner of the House of Lords--was the subject of the admiration of all who
+heard it. It was, indeed, known that she was a fine singer, and frequently
+entertained her mother's guests by singing to them, her mother
+accompanying her on the piano; nevertheless, the lucidity of her tones,
+and the entire absence of any discomposure to disturb them, surprised
+every one, and no one more so than her mother.
+
+[Sidenote: STATE VISIT TO THE CITY.]
+
+The Queen went in great state to the City on Lord Mayor's Day, November 9.
+This royal entry was one of the greatest sights which had ever been beheld
+in the City. The Queen, looking remarkably well, magnificently attired in
+pink satin shot with silver, was greeted with deafening cheers from a
+crowd far denser than any she had ever seen, along her whole route from
+Marlborough House (her temporary residence until Buckingham Palace was
+completed for her occupation) to the Guildhall. The houses along the
+thoroughfares by which the cavalcade passed were hung with bright-coloured
+cloths, with green boughs, and with what flowers the earth could afford at
+the late season of the year. Flags and heraldic banners darkened the dim
+November light across the Strand, Fleet Street, and Cheapside; and every
+pedestal that could be improvised supported a bust of Queen Victoria. At
+Temple Bar the Lord Mayor and Aldermen, mounted on artillery horses from
+Woolwich, each of the steeds being held by the head by the soldier who was
+accustomed to bestride him, awaited their distinguished guest. The Lord
+Mayor, dismounting and taking the City Sword in his hand, delivered the
+keys, which were graciously returned, while more vociferous cheers than
+ever rent the air. On which, the Lord Mayor, re-mounting and holding the
+City Sword aloft, rode before Her Majesty through the City, the cortege of
+mounted Aldermen following her carriage. The open space before St. Paul's
+was occupied by hustings, crowded by the Liverymen of the City Companies
+and the Christ's Hospital boys. One of these, in conformity with an old
+usage, having presented an address to the Queen, and the whole of the boys
+having sung "God save the Queen," the procession went on its way. At the
+Guildhall, which, with all its adjacent chambers, was sumptuously fitted
+up, a loyal address was read by the Recorder, and suitably acknowledged.
+After this came a sumptuous banquet, from which Her Majesty retired, to
+see on her way back the whole line of the route brilliantly illuminated.
+
+The first message which the Queen sent to Parliament when it re-assembled,
+was a truly characteristic one: it asked for a suitable provision for her
+royal mother. This provision was loyally made, and in the same short
+winter session her own civil list was settled. William IV. had enjoyed a
+civil list amounting to L510,000, while, from the accession of George III.
+to the death of his eldest son, it had been fixed at L1,030,000. Her
+Majesty's civil list was fixed at L385,000 per annum, and her privy purse,
+being the only sum over which she had complete personal control, and from
+which her private charities had to be disbursed, was fixed at L60,000. Out
+of the L385,000 the calculation, based by order of Parliament upon the
+accounts of the late reign, was that L131,260 would go for salaries of the
+Household, from the Master of the Horse and Mistress of the Robes, down to
+the humblest scullion and stable-helper; and L172,500 in tradesmen's
+bills.
+
+During the early days of her maiden reign, the Queen rose at eight,
+occupied a remarkably short time in dressing, and then discharged such
+routine business as signing despatches until the breakfast hour, which was
+invariably a quarter before ten. At that hour, she without fail sent one
+of her attendants to _invite_ the Duchess of Kent to breakfast. From the
+day of her ascending the throne, to remove the slightest ground for
+suspicion as to any undue influence, the strictest etiquette was preserved
+between mother and daughter; the former never approaching the latter
+unless specially summoned, and carefully abstaining from conversing about
+the business of the State. Twelve o'clock was the time appointed for
+conferences with her Ministers. After the usual complimentary salutation,
+she at once proceeded to the business of the day. If a document were
+handed to her, she read it without comment, and no remark passed her own
+lips or those of the Ministers present, until its perusal was concluded.
+After retiring from the Council-room, the interval was passed until dinner
+in riding or walking. At dinner, the first Lord-in-waiting took the head
+of the table; opposite to him, the chief Equerry-in-waiting. Her Majesty's
+chair was half way down on the right, the various guests being seated
+according to their ranks. Next to Her Majesty, on the right hand, was the
+nobleman of highest degree; next to him, the Duchess of Kent, and so on.
+On Her Majesty's left, the same rule was observed, the Baroness Lehzen,
+who acted as Secretary to the Queen, being always near her. The Queen left
+the table early for the drawing-room, where her musical tastes were
+regaled almost invariably, and her own proficiency very frequently
+displayed.
+
+[Sidenote: REVERENCE FOR SUNDAY.]
+
+The following incident, which was made public during the first year of the
+Queen's reign, made a very pleasing impression upon the well-conditioned
+portion of the public. A certain noble Minister arrived at Windsor at a
+late hour on Saturday night. On being introduced, he said, "I have brought
+down for your Majesty's inspection some documents of great importance;
+but, as I shall be obliged to trouble you to examine them in detail, I
+will not encroach on the time of your Majesty to-night, but will request
+your attention to-morrow morning." "To-morrow morning?" repeated the
+Queen; "to-morrow is Sunday, my lord." "True, your Majesty, but business
+of the State will not admit of delay." "I am aware of that," replied the
+Queen, "and, as your lordship could not have arrived earlier at the Palace
+to-night, I will, if those papers are of such pressing importance, attend
+to their contents after church to-morrow morning." So to church went the
+Queen and the Court, and to church went the noble lord; when, much to his
+surprise, the discourse was on the duties and obligations of the Christian
+Sabbath. "How did your lordship like the sermon?" asked the Queen. "Very
+much indeed, your Majesty," replied the nobleman. "Well, then," retorted
+Her Majesty, "I will not conceal from you that, last night, I sent the
+clergyman the text from which he preached. I hope we shall all be improved
+by the sermon." The Sunday passed without a single word being said
+relative to the State papers, and at night, when Her Majesty was about to
+withdraw--"To-morrow morning, my lord, at any hour you please," said the
+Queen, turning to the nobleman--"as early as seven, my lord, if you like,
+we will look into the papers." The nobleman said that he could not think
+of intruding on Her Majesty at so early an hour; he thought nine o'clock
+would be quite soon enough. "No, no, my lord," said the Queen; "as the
+papers are of importance, I wish them to be attended to very early.
+However, if you wish it to be nine, be it so." And accordingly, the next
+morning at nine, Her Majesty was seated ready to receive the nobleman and
+his papers.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X.
+
+THE QUEEN CROWNED.
+
+    Novel Features in the Coronation--Its Cost--Large Amount of Money
+    Circulated--Splendour of the Procession--Enormous Crowds--The Scene
+    within the Abbey--Arrival of the Queen--The Regalia and Sacred
+    Vessels--Costume of the Queen--Astonishment of the Turkish Ambassador
+    at the Scene--The Coronation Ceremony--The Queen's Oath--The
+    Anointing--The Crown placed on her Head--The Homage--An Aged Peer--The
+    Queen's Crown--The Illuminations and general Festivities--Fair in Hyde
+    Park--The Duke of Wellington and Marshal Soult at the Guildhall.
+
+
+The great event of the year 1838 was the Coronation, which took place on
+the 28th of June. It was conducted after the abridged model of that of the
+Queen's immediate predecessor. The Coronation of George IV. had cost
+L243,000; that of William IV., L50,000. The charges on the occasion of the
+crowning of Queen Victoria amounted to about L70,000. This slight excess
+over the cost of the last Sovereign's solemn investiture with regal power
+was explained by the Chancellor of the Exchequer as having been in no
+sense occasioned by any part of the ceremonial peculiarly connected with
+the Sovereign, but it had been incurred with a view of enabling the great
+mass of the people to participate in this national festivity. The great
+novelty on the occasion was the omission of the walking procession of all
+the estates of the realm, and the banquet in Westminster Hall, with the
+feudal services attendant thereon. Many of the upper classes grumbled not
+a little at these omissions; but the general public were more than
+proportionately gratified. For in lieu of the disused ceremonies, a public
+procession through the streets was substituted. This enabled all to
+witness the splendid pageant, and induced a very large private expenditure
+and circulation of money. It was estimated that no less than L200,000 were
+paid for the use of windows and other positions of vantage in the line of
+the procession. The price of single seats ranged from five shillings to
+ten guineas; and the Duke of Buckingham, in his "Courts and Cabinets of
+William IV. and Victoria," alleges that single windows in Pall Mall and
+St. James's Street produced no less than L200. Persons of distinction
+behaved with a becoming liberality and splendour. Marshal Soult, the old
+opponent of Wellington, who specially represented on the occasion the
+Court of the Tuileries, and who was received by the crowds with great
+enthusiasm, appeared in a splendid state carriage that had been used by
+the Prince of Conde. The Russian Ambassador purchased for L1,600 a similar
+chariot, which had already done the same duty for the Duke of Devonshire,
+at St. Petersburg, on a like occasion. Another diplomat gave L250 for the
+loan for the day of a vehicle befitting his rank; while many more had to
+content themselves with carriages whose normal function it was to minister
+to the state of the civic magnates, and which were hastily repainted and
+decorated for the auspicious occasion.
+
+The day was one of the brightest on which the Queen, with her proverbial
+good fortune in this respect, has ever appeared amongst her subjects. At
+early morn, the first rays of the blazing Midsummer sun slanted down
+through the windows of Westminster Abbey upon the jewels of whole rows of
+peeresses, and the illuminations which turned night into day remained in
+full magnificence until the dawn of the succeeding morning. At dawn, a
+salvo of artillery from the Tower caused all the population to be astir,
+and the population was on this day increased by the importation of four
+hundred thousand visitors. The behaviour of the enormous multitude which
+first lined the streets and then spread itself over the town, was beyond
+all praise. Courtesy and mutual forbearance were conspicuous, and no
+accident or offence occurred to mar the pleasing impressions of the
+ceremonial.
+
+[Sidenote: ORDER OF THE PROCESSION.]
+
+The route of the procession was as follows:--From Buckingham Palace, up
+Constitution Hill, along Piccadilly, St. James's Street, Pall Mall,
+Cockspur Street, Charing Cross, Whitehall, and Parliament Street, to the
+great west door of Westminster Abbey. The most novel feature of the
+procession was the carriages of the Foreign Ambassadors, to which we have
+already alluded, with their jaegers in gorgeous or grotesque uniforms.
+These came in the order in which they had arrived on their special
+missions to this country; the carriages of the regular resident
+Ambassadors came in their ordinary order of precedence. Next followed the
+members of the Royal Family, the Duchess of Kent preceding the carriages
+of the surviving sons of George III. To the Queen's Barge Master, with
+forty-eight watermen, succeeded twelve of the Royal carriages, containing
+the Ladies and Gentlemen of the Household. Next came mounted, three and
+three, the high functionaries of the Army. And after Royal huntsmen,
+yeomen, prickers, marshalmen, foresters, and a host of other minor
+functionaries--the whole of the mounted Household Troops being here and
+there interspersed at intervals in the cavalcade--came the grand state
+coach, containing Her Majesty the Queen, with the Duchess of Sutherland,
+Mistress of the Robes. On either side of the carriage rode Lord
+Combermere, Gold Stick in Waiting, and the Earl of Ilchester, Captain of
+the Yeomen of the Guard. The Earl of Albemarle, as Master of the Horse,
+and the Duke of Buccleuch, as Captain-General of the Royal Scottish
+Archers, rode behind. A squadron of Life Guards brought up the rear.
+
+Meanwhile, within the Abbey, a painful sleepiness had oppressed those who
+had sat so many hours in cramped positions; many of them in galleries
+perched up high under the roofs of the aisles. Suddenly, a burst of music,
+rushing among the arches and ringing from the roof, aroused and entranced
+all, who peered eagerly down upon the procession of small figures; the
+central one looking the slightest and most fragile of all. At half-past
+eleven, the Queen reached the door of the Abbey, where she was received by
+the great officers of State, the noblemen bearing the Regalia, and the
+bishops carrying Patina, Chalice, and Bible. Having retired to her
+Robing-room, the procession formed and proceeded towards the altar, which
+was laden with magnificent gold plate, and beside which stood St. Edward's
+Chair. Besides the elements which are common to all great English regal
+processions, and which it is, therefore, not requisite to recapitulate,
+the Regalia, which only appear on such occasions, were thus
+distributed:--St. Edward's Staff, the Golden Spurs, the Sceptre with the
+Cross, the Curtana, and two Swords of Investiture, were borne respectively
+by the Duke of Roxburgh, Lord Byron, Duke of Cleveland, Duke of
+Devonshire, Marquis of Westminster, and Duke of Sutherland. The coronets
+of the princes of the blood were borne by noblemen; their trains by
+knights or peers' sons. Next came the Earl Marshal, Duke of Norfolk, with
+his staff, Lord Melbourne with the Sword of State, and the Duke of
+Wellington, with his staff, as Lord High Constable; the Dukes of Richmond,
+Hamilton, and Somerset bore the Sceptre and Dove, St. Edward's Crown, and
+the Orb; the Bishops of Bangor, Winchester, and London carried the Patina,
+Chalice, and Bible. The Queen, who was supported on one side by the Bishop
+of Bath and Wells, on the other by the Bishop of Durham, wore a royal robe
+of crimson velvet, furred with ermine and broidered with gold lace. She
+wore the collars of her orders, and on her head a circlet of gold. Eight
+peers' daughters bore her train, most, if not all of them, old friends of
+her happy childish tours to the mansions of the aristocracy, and
+distinguished by their personal attractions. About fifty ladies of rank,
+occupying various positions in the household, succeeded, and the
+procession was concluded by Officers of State and Yeomen of the Guard.
+
+[Sidenote: THE CORONATION.]
+
+The chief and most picturesque incidents in the Coronation ceremony must
+be briefly narrated. The Queen looked extremely well, and "had a very
+animated countenance;" but perhaps the splendid attire of some of the
+foreign ambassadors attracted more attention than even the Sovereign to
+whose court they were accredited. The costume of the Prince Esterhazy was
+by far the most gorgeous; his dress, even to his boot-heels, sparkled with
+diamonds. The Turkish Ambassador seemed specially bewildered at the
+general splendour of the scene: for some moments he stopped in
+astonishment, and had to be courteously admonished to move to his allotted
+place.
+
+As the Queen advanced slowly to the centre of the choir, she was received
+with hearty plaudits, and the musicians sang the anthem, "I was glad." At
+its close, the boys of Westminster School, privileged of old to occupy a
+special gallery, chanted "Vivat Victoria Regina." On this the Queen moved
+to a chair, midway between the Chair of Homage and the altar; and there,
+after a few moments' private devotion, kneeling on a fald-stool, she sat
+down, and the ceremony proper began. First came the "recognition." The
+Archbishop of Canterbury, accompanied by some half-dozen of the greatest
+civil dignitaries, advanced and said, "Sirs, I here present unto you Queen
+Victoria, the undoubted Queen of this realm; wherefore, all you who have
+come this day to do your homage, are you willing to do the same?" On this,
+all Her Majesty's subjects present shouted, "God Save Queen Victoria!" the
+Archbishop turning in succession to the north, south, and west sides of
+the Abbey, and the Queen doing the same. The bishops who bore them, then
+placed the Patina, Chalice, and Bible on the altar; the Queen, kneeling,
+made her first offering, a pall, or altar-cloth, of gold. The Archbishop
+having offered a prayer, the Regalia were laid on the altar; the Litany
+and Communion services were read, and a brief sermon preached, by various
+prelates. The preacher was the Bishop of London, and his text was from the
+Second Book of Chronicles, chapter xxxiv., verse 31--"And the king stood
+in his place, and made a covenant before the Lord, to walk after the Lord,
+and to keep his commandments, and his testimonies, and his statutes, with
+all his heart, and with all his soul, to perform the words of the covenant
+which are written in this book."
+
+After the sermon, the Queen swore--the Archbishop of Canterbury putting
+the oath--that she would maintain the law and the established religion.
+Then Her Majesty--the Sword of State being carried before her--went to the
+altar, and laying her right hand upon the Gospel, said, kneeling, "The
+things which I have here-before promised, I will perform and keep. So help
+me, God!" Having kissed the book, and signed a transcript of the oath
+presented to her by the Archbishop, she knelt upon her fald-stool, while
+the choir sang, "Veni, Creator, Dominus."
+
+[Sidenote: THE HOMAGE OF THE PEERS.]
+
+Now, sitting in King Edward's Chair, four Knights of the Garter holding
+the while over her head a canopy of cloth of gold, her head and hands were
+anointed by the Archbishop of Canterbury; after which he said his prayer,
+or blessing, over her. In quick succession followed the delivery of the
+Spurs, Sword of State, &c. The Dean of Westminster, having taken the crown
+from the altar, handed it to the Archbishop, who reverently placed it on
+the Queen's head. This was no sooner done, than there arose from every
+part of the edifice a tremendous shout--"God save the Queen!" accompanied
+with lusty cheers and the waving of hats and handkerchiefs. At the same
+moment, the Peers and Peeresses put on their coronets, the Bishops their
+caps, and the Kings of Arms their crowns; the trumpets sounded, the drums
+were beat, and volleys fired from the Tower and Park guns. After the
+Benediction and Te Deum, the Queen was "enthroned," or "lifted," as the
+formulary has it, from the chair in which she had first sat into the Chair
+of Homage, where she delivered the sceptre, &c., to noblemen, while she
+received fealty of her more distinguished subjects. The Archbishop first
+knelt and did homage for himself and all the spiritual peers; next came
+the Princes of the blood, who merely touched the crown, kissed her left
+cheek, swore the oath of homage, and retired without kneeling; then the
+Peers in succession came--seventeen dukes, twenty-two marquises,
+ninety-four earls, twenty viscounts, and ninety-two barons. Each Peer
+knelt bareheaded, and kissed Her Majesty's hand. Lord Rolle, who was
+upwards of eighty, stumbled and fell in going up the steps; the Queen at
+once stepped forward, and held out her hand to assist him. While the Peers
+were doing homage, the Earl of Surrey, Treasurer of the Household, threw
+silver coronation medals about the choir and lower galleries; and when the
+homage was completed the Members of the House of Commons, who occupied a
+special gallery, indicated their loyalty by giving nine lusty cheers. It
+was almost a quarter to four when the procession came back along the nave.
+The return cavalcade along the streets was even more attractive than that
+of the morning, for the royal and noble personages now wore their
+coronets, and the Queen her crown. The crown was especially admired. That
+which had been made for George IV. weighed upwards of seven pounds, and as
+it was considered too heavy for the Queen, a new one was constructed by
+Messrs. Rundell and Bridge, of less than half the weight. It was formed of
+hoops of silver, covered with precious stones, over a cap of rich blue
+velvet, surmounted with a ball enriched by diamonds. Amongst its other
+gems was a large heart-shaped ruby, which had been worn by the Black
+Prince; this was set in front.
+
+[Sidenote: CORONATION FESTIVITIES.]
+
+In the evening the Queen entertained a hundred guests to dinner at
+Buckingham Palace, and at a late hour witnessed from the roof the
+fireworks in the Green Park. At Apsley House, the Duke of Wellington gave
+a ball, to which two thousand guests were invited. All the Cabinet
+Ministers gave state dinners. A fair was held in Hyde Park on the day of
+the coronation--Thursday--and until the end of the week. The area allotted
+comprised nearly one-third of the Park. On Friday, the Queen visited the
+fair, which was studded with theatres, refreshment booths, and stalls for
+the sale of fancy articles. The illuminations and fireworks gave great
+satisfaction, as did the fact that the whole of the theatres were opened
+gratuitously at the Queen's express desire. Among other festivities, at
+home and abroad, which succeeded and were held in honour of the coronation
+of Victoria, may be mentioned a grand review by Her Majesty in Hyde Park;
+a magnificent banquet at the Guildhall, at which the old Waterloo
+antagonists, Wellington and Soult, were toasted in combination; the
+feasting of 13,000 persons on one spot at Cambridge; the laying of the
+first stone of the St. George's Hall, at Liverpool, and at Leghorn of an
+English Protestant Church; and a great public dinner, in Paris, presided
+over by Sir Sidney Smith, the hero of St. Jean d'Acre.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI.
+
+THE BEDCHAMBER PLOT.
+
+    Resignation of Lord Melbourne's Cabinet--Sir Robert Peel sent
+    for--Fails to Form a Cabinet--His Explanation--The Queen Refuses to
+    Dismiss her Ladies of the Bedchamber--Supported by her late
+    Ministers--Sir Robert Peel's Objections--The Queen will not give
+    way--The Whigs recalled to Power--Public Opinion on the Dispute--The
+    Whig Ministers blamed, but the Queen exculpated.
+
+
+In April, 1839, Lord Melbourne's administration, which had been rapidly
+losing its once great popularity, obtained only the small and nominal
+majority of five, in a very important matter connected with the government
+of Jamaica. The Ministers accordingly tendered their resignations early in
+May, and Her Majesty was graciously pleased to accept them. As usual under
+such circumstances, the Parliament was prorogued for a few days. After the
+lapse of a week, the Houses re-assembled, and Lord John Russell, who had
+been the Whig leader of the House, immediately rose and said that since he
+had last addressed them, Sir Robert Peel had received authority from Her
+Majesty to form a new Administration, and that the attempt of the Right
+Honourable Baronet having failed, Her Majesty had been graciously pleased
+to permit that gentleman to state the circumstances which had led to that
+failure.
+
+On her accession, the Queen had left the selection of the Ladies of the
+Household entirely to her uncle Sussex, and Lord Melbourne--the one of
+whom had been a Whig all his life, and the other, though but a
+comparatively recent convert, was the head of the Whig party. They had
+somewhat indiscreetly selected at least all the important female members
+of the Household, those to whom a young girl would be likely to look up
+confidingly for information and guidance, from the ranks of the Whig
+aristocracy. On Tuesday, the 29th of May, the resignations of the
+Melbourne Cabinet were announced to Parliament. The next day, at two
+o'clock, in answer to her summons, Sir Robert Peel waited upon the Queen.
+She had first sent for the Duke of Wellington, but he recommended his
+former lieutenant and future leader as premier. The Queen, with
+characteristic truthfulness, which was none the less admirable that it was
+too girlishly outspoken to be judicious, or at all in accordance with the
+spirit of the constitution, at once greeted Sir Robert with an avowal that
+she was much grieved to part with her late Ministers, whose conduct she
+entirely approved. This was rather an awkward beginning. Nevertheless, he
+proceeded with the formation of his Cabinet, and the next day submitted a
+list of names to the Queen, including the Duke of Wellington, Lords
+Lyndhurst, Aberdeen, Ellenborough, Stanley, Sir James Graham, and Mr.
+Goulburn. As to the Household, he had hardly thought about it, and indeed
+he said he did not know who constituted the female part of it. He took the
+Red Book to learn who they were, and was at once struck with the
+completeness of the arrangements for surrounding the Queen with the
+nearest relations of the Whig Ministers. For example, he afterwards put
+this point most strongly to the House:--
+
+    Sir, let me take that particular question on which my difficulty would
+    arise. Who can conceal from himself that my difficulties were not
+    Canada; that my difficulties were not Jamaica; that my difficulties
+    were Ireland? (ironical cheers). I admit it freely, and thank you for
+    the confirmation of my argument which these cheers afford. And what is
+    the fact? I, undertaking to be a Minister of the Crown, and wishing to
+    carry on public affairs through the intervention of the present House
+    of Commons, in order that I might exempt the country from the
+    agitation, and, possibly, the peril of a dissolution--I, upon that
+    very question in a minority of upwards of twenty members. A majority
+    of twenty-two had decided in favour of the policy of the Irish
+    Government [that is, of the Irish policy of Lord Melbourne]. The chief
+    members of the Irish Government, whose policy was so approved of, were
+    the Marquis of Normanby, and the noble lord opposite, the member for
+    Yorkshire [Lord Morpeth, afterwards the Earl of Carlisle]. By whom are
+    the chief offices in the Household at this moment held? By the sister
+    of Lord Morpeth [the Duchess of Sutherland], and the wife of the
+    Marquis of Normanby. But the question is--Would it be considered by
+    the public that a Minister had the confidence of the Crown, when the
+    relatives of his immediate political opponents held the highest
+    offices about the person of the Sovereign? My impression decidedly was
+    that I should not appear to the country to be in possession of that
+    confidence; and that impression I could not overcome; and upon that
+    impression I resolved to act. Who were my political opponents? Why, of
+    the two I have named, one, the Marquis of Normanby, was publicly
+    stated to be a candidate for the very same office which it was
+    proposed I should fill--namely, the office of Prime Minister. The
+    other noble lord has been designated as the leader of this House; and
+    I know not why his talents might not justify his appointment, in case
+    of the retirement of his predecessor. Is it possible--I ask you to go
+    back to other times; take Pitt, or Fox, or any other Minister of this
+    proud country, and answer for yourselves this question--is it fitting
+    that one man shall be the Minister, responsible for the most arduous
+    charge that can fall to the lot of man, and that the wife of the
+    other--that other his most formidable political enemy--shall, with his
+    express consent, hold office in immediate attendance on the
+    Sovereign? Oh no! I felt it was impossible--I could not consent to
+    this. Yes, feelings more powerful than reasoning on those precedents
+    told me that it was not for my own honour or the public interests that
+    I should consent to be Minister of England. The public interests may
+    suffer nothing by my abandonment of that high trust; the public
+    interests may suffer nothing by my eternal exclusion from power; but
+    the public interests would suffer, and I should be abandoning my duty
+    to myself, my country, and, above all, to the Queen my sovereign, if I
+    were to consent to hold power on conditions which I felt to be--which
+    I had the strongest conviction were--incompatible with the authority
+    and with the duty of a Prime Minister.
+
+[Sidenote: THE QUEEN AND SIR ROBERT PEEL.]
+
+Sir Robert had informed Her Majesty that he did not propose any change in
+the offices in question below the grade of Ladies of the Bedchamber. He
+took it for granted that the ladies who held higher offices would save him
+any appearance of want of courtesy by voluntarily resigning. Ere this,
+however, had been stated, the Queen having expressed a desire that her own
+and her mother's old friend, Lord Liverpool (who, it may be remarked, was
+of the Tory party), should be appointed to some office, Sir Robert at once
+requested the Queen's permission to offer him the office of Lord Steward,
+or any other which he might select. The only other names which he
+submitted to her were those of Lords Ashley (now Shaftesbury), and Sydney.
+So far all was well. But when he went on to say that he was most ready to
+apply a similar principle to, and consult Her Majesty's wishes in, the
+selection of her ladies, the Queen remarked that she should reserve all
+these appointments, and indeed did not intend to make any present change.
+In a subsequent interview with the Duke of Wellington, the Queen
+reiterated the same desire and intention. Meanwhile, after her interviews
+with Peel and Wellington, Her Majesty sent for Lord John Russell, and put
+the direct question to him, Was she right in her determination? He at once
+replied that she was right; on which she naively asked him to support her
+now, as she had supported the Cabinet of which he had been a member. Lord
+John having consulted Lord Melbourne, they called their ex-colleagues
+together, and advised the Queen to send the following note to Sir Robert
+Peel, which she did:--
+
+    Buckingham Palace, May 10, 1839.
+
+    The Queen, having considered the proposal made to her yesterday by Sir
+    Robert Peel, to remove the Ladies of her Bedchamber, cannot consent to
+    adopt a course which she conceives to be contrary to usage and
+    repugnant to her feelings.
+
+On receipt of this, Sir Robert Peel, acting in perfect concert with the
+Duke of Wellington, communicated with Her Majesty in a remarkably
+courteous letter, of which this was the concluding and decisive
+paragraph:--
+
+    Having had the opportunity, through your Majesty's gracious
+    consideration, of reflecting upon this point, he humbly submits to
+    your Majesty that he is reluctantly compelled, by a sense of public
+    duty and of the interest of your Majesty's service, to adhere to the
+    opinion which he ventured to express to your Majesty. He trusts he may
+    be permitted, at the same time, to express to your Majesty his
+    grateful acknowledgments for the distinction which your Majesty
+    conferred upon him, by requiring his advice and assistance in the
+    attempt to form an Administration, and his earnest prayers that
+    whatever arrangements your Majesty may be enabled to make for that
+    purpose, may be most conducive to your Majesty's personal comfort and
+    happiness, and to the promotion of the public welfare.
+
+[Sidenote: WELLINGTON AND LORD MELBOURNE.]
+
+It was generally believed at the time, as Sir Archibald Alison himself
+confesses, that Peel did not regret this royal rebuff; for "he was by no
+means sanguine," says the Tory historiographer, "as to the success of his
+mission, nor annoyed at the failure of the attempt to fulfil it." The
+_pro_ and _con_ were put with equal terseness and skill by Lord Melbourne
+and the Duke of Wellington. The words of the latter were:--"It is
+essential that the Minister should possess the entire confidence of Her
+Majesty, and with that view should exercise the usual control permitted to
+the Minister by the Sovereign in the construction of the Household. There
+is the greatest possible difference between the _Household of the Queen
+Consort and the Household of the Queen Regnant_--that of the former, who
+is not a political personage, being comparatively of little importance."
+
+Lord Melbourne, on the other hand, thus justified the advice which his
+Royal Mistress had received from him and adopted:--"I frankly declare that
+I resume office unequivocally and solely for this reason, that I will not
+abandon my Sovereign in a situation of difficulty and distress, and
+especially when a demand is made upon Her Majesty with which, I think, she
+ought not to comply--a demand inconsistent with her personal honour, and
+which, if acquiesced in, would render her reign liable to all the changes
+and variations of political parties, and render her domestic life one
+constant scene of unhappiness and discomfort."
+
+The public at large, even those who thought her _action_ wrong, accorded
+to the Queen sympathy rather than blame. It was well known that she had
+been dexterously surrounded by the wives and sisters and daughters of the
+great Whigs, and that on these ladies all her ardent and girlish
+affections were bestowed. This made the people all the more angry that
+the male heads of the Whig houses now gave her unconstitutional advice.
+Not only her youth and inexperience, but the very warmth of the affection
+which she had displayed, and, above all, the fact that she was the chief
+sufferer on the occasion, all pleaded for her. Indeed, it may be said that
+the quickly-forgotten "Bedchamber Plot" rather endeared the Sovereign to
+her subjects than otherwise. Both of her uncles who preceded her on the
+throne had been exceedingly capricious and disloyal to their ministers.
+Under these reigns there was a constant sense, in the breasts of ministers
+and in the breasts of the people, of the precariousness of the existence
+of even the most popular cabinets. It certainly cannot be said that in the
+early summer of 1839 Lord Melbourne's cabinet was popular. Nevertheless,
+though the ministers were blamed, the people were charmed by the Queen's
+ingenuousness, bravery, and steadiness of attachment. It is but just to
+state that on every future occasion of the change of an Administration,
+the Queen has, without the slightest demur, conceded the point, the
+consideration of which we now dismiss. And with the transparent candour of
+her nature, Her Majesty has caused it to be made known that the Prince
+Consort had much to do with producing this result.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII.
+
+COURTSHIP AND BETROTHAL.
+
+    Desire of the Coburg Relatives for a Marriage between Victoria and
+    Albert--Favourable Impressions mutually made by Victoria and
+    Albert--Prince Albert's Letter on the Queen's Accession--Opposition of
+    King William IV. to the Marriage--Correspondence between the
+    Cousins--King Leopold urges on the Marriage--The Queen's Reluctance to
+    become Betrothed--Her subsequent Regret at this--The Prince craves a
+    definite Determination--His Second Visit to England--Betrothed at
+    last--Returns to Germany to say Farewell.
+
+
+We have already seen that the marriage of Prince Albert with his cousin
+was strongly desired by their common relatives from a very early period of
+their lives. It was the "ardent wish" of their grandmother, and she freely
+communicated that wish to her son and daughter, Prince Leopold and the
+Duchess of Kent. There are strong indications that the astute King Leopold
+never lost sight of this end from the date of his mother's death in 1831.
+Soon after the visit of the brothers to their "aunt Kent" in 1836, the
+rumour began to prevail in England that Prince Albert was the _fiance_ of
+the future Queen. The idea, however, was premature. So we know on the
+Queen's authority, who has caused it to be stated that "nothing was then
+settled."
+
+In the letters which the Prince sent to his father and others, during his
+stay at Brussels and elsewhere, immediately after his first visit to
+England, he made frequent reference to the general impressions thence
+derived, and especially to his young cousin. Of such allusions, this is a
+fair specimen:--"A few days ago I received a letter from aunt Kent,
+enclosing one from our cousin. She told me I was to communicate its
+contents to you, so I send it on with a translation of the English. The
+day before yesterday I received a second and yet kinder letter from my
+cousin, in which she thanks me for my good wishes on her birth-day. You
+may easily imagine that both these letters gave me great pleasure." And
+when the news of the death of King William and the accession of Victoria
+arrived, he informed his father, on the authority of his uncle Leopold,
+that the new reign had commenced most successfully (this, perhaps, in
+allusion to the anticipated attempt at a _coup d'etat_ by the Duke of
+Cumberland), that his cousin Victoria had shown astonishing
+self-possession, although English parties were violently excited, and that
+the Duchess of Kent had found strenuous support against "violent attacks
+in the newspapers." This last statement we have, however, good reasons for
+saying had reached the young Prince in a somewhat exaggerated form; we
+mean, so far as the "violence" of the attacks was concerned.
+
+To the Queen herself the Prince wrote a letter, consolatory in her
+bereavement, and congratulatory on her accession. This was the first
+letter which he sent her written in English. He prayed Heaven to assist
+her now that she was "Queen of the mightiest land in Europe," with the
+happiness of millions in her hand, and asked her "to think sometimes of
+her cousins in Bonn [where they were then pursuing their University
+studies], and to continue that kindness you favoured them with till now."
+
+[Sidenote: RUMOURS ABOUT MARRIAGE.]
+
+On the accession of the Queen, the rumour of her marriage with Prince
+Albert became ten times more prevalent. The judicious King Leopold thought
+it wise, for a time at least, to discourage this expectation, and to
+withdraw the attention of the English from the Prince. Hence it was that
+he counselled those journeys into Austria, South Germany, Switzerland, and
+Italy, in which we have already traced the steps of the Prince. This was
+chiefly dictated by the distracted state of parties in England, which the
+King of the Belgians thought it better to permit time to allay ere the
+matrimonial project was brought specifically forward. "United as all
+parties are," wrote Prince Albert to his father, from the inspiration of
+his uncle, "in high praise of the young Queen, the more do they seem to
+manoeuvre and intrigue with and against each other. On every side there is
+nothing but a network of cabals and intrigues, and parties are arrayed
+against each other in a most inexplicable manner."
+
+Whilst making his "grand tour," the Prince kept up an occasional
+correspondence with his cousin. From Switzerland he sent her an album of
+the places which he visited, from the top of the Rigi a dried Alpine rose,
+and from Ferney an autographic scrap of Voltaire, which he received from
+an old servant of the great philosopher.
+
+By the early part of 1839, the tour was concluded, and we find the Prince
+once more at Brussels with his uncle. Leopold now spoke to him more fully
+and definitely than he had hitherto done about his prospects in life and
+the state of his affections. It very clearly appears that the marriage
+with the Queen had been gradually becoming more and more an understood
+thing. It appears equally clear that the Queen was averse, as yet, to
+committing herself to a distinct and final engagement. She was willing to
+marry, but wished to defer the contraction of the union. She thought both
+herself and her cousin too young; and the interests of her people, rather
+than any personal backwardness, influenced her wish that both she and her
+husband should be older ere they became man and wife. She regretted
+afterwards this delay, and felt that the harassments of the Bedchamber
+Plot and other still more painful incidents which we have thought it
+preferable not to rake up and reproduce in these pages, would have been
+borne by her with more equanimity had she had the natural protection of a
+husband six months or a year ere the date of her marriage. It was probably
+this postponement of any definite settlement that occasioned Prince
+Albert's absence from England at the Coronation, in June, 1838. His father
+was invited, and received at the hands of his niece the honour of the
+Order of the Garter. The Dowager Duchess of Gotha was very proud of this,
+and proud also to recollect that her son-in-law possessed the noblest
+knightly order of Christendom, which her own father of Hesse-Cassel, and
+her father-in-law of Gotha, had also worn and treasured.
+
+[Sidenote: OBJECTIONS TO THE MARRIAGE.]
+
+In more than one quarter the marriage, which all members of the Coburg
+family felt to be so eligible, and in which their feelings were so much
+involved, met with a considerable amount of opposition. By a curious
+coincidence, a Prince of Orange had been the suitor favoured by George IV.
+for the hand of his daughter; but she selected the man of her own
+choice--Leopold, a Coburg Prince. And a Prince of Orange (nephew of the
+rejected aspirant to the hand of the Princess Charlotte) was the man
+thought by William IV., as long as he lived, to be the best future husband
+of his niece and successor; and his niece, too, selected, like her cousin
+Charlotte, as the man of her choice, a Prince of the House of Coburg. King
+William did all in his power to discourage the attachment between Victoria
+and Albert. He was so strongly set against this match that he did all that
+he could even to prevent Prince Albert's visit to England in 1836; and
+although he never spoke to his young niece on the subject himself, she
+afterwards learned that he had devised no fewer than five matrimonial
+alternatives for her selection--that of the late Prince Alexander of the
+Netherlands always having the preference and priority. In justice to the
+memory of King William it must, however, be stated that the Dowager Queen
+Adelaide afterwards told her niece that her uncle would never have striven
+to control or restrain her affections if he had had any idea that they had
+been strongly bestowed in any particular quarter.
+
+It was in the early part of 1839, that King Leopold first wrote seriously
+to his niece on the subject--about the same time that we have seen that he
+made a similar verbal communication to his nephew. He received a
+favourable response from both, but with this difference, that the lady
+craved an indefinite delay. This idea of delay the Prince dealt with in a
+very honest and manly manner. He had, he said, no objections to
+postponement; but, nevertheless, thought he had a fair right, if he were
+to keep himself free, and thereby be compelled to decline any other career
+or line of life which might open itself out to him, to have some definite
+assurance or understanding that the engagement would be without doubt
+contracted. This concession, however, the equally natural bashfulness of
+the Queen would not suffer her to make. However, all came right in the
+end, and the Queen has very candidly confessed in her riper years, that if
+she had known as a girl what she afterwards learned as a woman, that she
+even seemed to be _playing_ with her somewhat undemonstrative but not the
+less devoted lover, she would not have exacted the semi-sacrifice which
+the Prince's self-respect caused him to feel uneasy at, but to which the
+true courtesy of his nature induced him to submit. He _did_ wait till
+1839, but the Queen afterwards learned that he came to England in that
+year prepared to declare that, in the case of further postponement, he
+must decline to consider himself bound in any way for the future.
+
+[Sidenote: FIRST MEETING WITH PRINCE ALBERT.]
+
+In October, 1839, Prince Albert, with his brother, set out from Brussels
+to England, to urge his final suit. Ere leaving Germany, he had spent a
+very pleasant time with his cousin, Count Albert Mensdorff, who was doing
+military duty with the garrison of Mayence. They then made a short journey
+together, in the course of which the one cousin confided the great secret
+to the other. "During our journey," writes the Count, "Albert confided to
+me, under the seal of the strictest confidence, that he was going to
+England to make your acquaintance, and that if you liked each other you
+were to be engaged. He spoke very seriously about the difficulties of the
+position he would have to occupy in England, but hoped that dear uncle
+Leopold would assist him with his advice." The Princes--Albert bearing
+with him a shrewd and significant letter to the Queen from King
+Leopold--arrived at Windsor on the 10th of October, where they were
+cordially received by their cousin and aunt. The Queen was much struck
+with the greatly improved appearance of the Prince, in the interval of
+three years since she had last seen him. Gay and festive entertainments
+had been arranged in their honour immediately upon their arrival. The
+Queen became more and more charmed with her cousin, and within a week
+after his arrival, she informed her Premier, Lord Melbourne, that she had
+made up her mind to the marriage. In reply, he indicated his own perfect
+satisfaction, and added that the nation was getting anxious that its
+sovereign should be married; and then he said, in a kindly way, "You will
+be much more comfortable; for a woman cannot stand alone for any time, in
+whatever position she may be."
+
+The following we present, without professing either to confirm or question
+its accuracy, but simply as being the commonly-received report, at the
+time, of the manner in which the engagement was finally effected between
+the parties directly interested:--
+
+    The Prince, in his turn, played the part of a royal lover with all the
+    grace peculiar to his house. He never willingly absented himself from
+    the Queen's society and presence, and her every wish was anticipated
+    with the alacrity of an unfeigned attachment. At length Her Majesty,
+    having wholly made up her mind as to the issue of this visit, found
+    herself in some measure embarrassed as to the fit and proper means of
+    indicating her preference to the Prince. This was a perplexing task,
+    but the Queen acquitted herself of it with equal delicacy and tact. At
+    one of the Palace balls she took occasion to present her bouquet to
+    the Prince at the conclusion of a dance, and the hint was not lost
+    upon the polite and gallant German. His close uniform, buttoned up to
+    the throat, did not admit of his placing the Persian-like gift where
+    it would be most honoured; so he immediately drew his penknife and cut
+    a slit in his dress in the neighbourhood of his heart, where he
+    gracefully deposited the happy omen. Again, to announce to the Privy
+    Council her intended union was an easy duty in comparison to that of
+    intimating her wishes to the principal party concerned; and here, too,
+    it is said that our Sovereign Lady displayed unusual presence of mind
+    and female ingenuity. The Prince was expressing the grateful sense
+    which he entertained of his reception in England, and the delight
+    which he experienced during his stay from the kind attentions of
+    royalty, when the Queen, very naturally and very pointedly, put to him
+    the question upon which their future fates depended: "If, indeed, your
+    Highness is so much pleased with this country, perhaps you would not
+    object to remaining in it, and making it your home?" No one can doubt
+    the reply.
+
+[Sidenote: THE BETROTHAL.]
+
+The day after the Queen's communication to her Premier, she caused an
+intimation to be conveyed to her lover that she desired to see him in
+private. The Prince at once waited upon her, and after a few minutes'
+general conversation, the Queen told him why she had sent for him, and
+modestly but plainly said that she was quite willing now to undertake the
+bond of betrothal. Of course, there was only one possible response, and
+the Prince joyously wrote the next day to his trusty friend and tried
+counsellor, Baron Stockmar, "on one of the happiest days of his life, to
+give him the most welcome news." The betrothal was at once communicated to
+Prince Ernest, to King Leopold, and to the Duke of Coburg. From these and
+other relatives to whom the news, as yet to be kept a family secret, was
+sent, the warmest felicitations quickly poured in. Leopold wrote,
+commending Albert in the highest terms, and emphatically congratulating
+Victoria on having secured an unmistakably good husband, concluding with
+the prayer, "May Albert be able to strew roses without thorns on the
+pathway of life of our good Victoria!"
+
+The Queen had intended to make her first formal announcement of her
+intended marriage to her Parliament; but on second thoughts, she altered
+her resolve, and selected her Privy Council as the first official
+recipients of the tidings. Of course, the Ministers had been already
+confidentially informed of the Queen's purpose; and they strongly
+counselled an early union, and both Queen and Prince acquiesced in the
+proposal. After happy and rapturous days of undoubted and now
+freely-acknowledged attachment, the Princes returned to Germany, on the
+14th of November, after a visit lasting just five weeks; Ernest to return
+to his military duties, Albert to say farewell to friends and fatherland,
+ere finally returning to the region of his new life and love.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII.
+
+THE QUEEN WEDDED.
+
+    Announcement of the intended Marriage to the Privy Council and
+    Parliament--Parliamentary Settlement of the Prince's Rank,
+    &c.--Annoying Circumstances--The Prince's Protestantism--His
+    Income--Arrival of the Bridegroom--Receives a National Welcome--The
+    Wedding--Honeymoon spent at Windsor.
+
+
+On the day after the departure of the Princes, the Queen wrote letters to
+the Queen Dowager, and the other members of the Royal Family, informing
+them of her intended marriage, and received kind letters in return from
+all. A few days later she and her mother came from Windsor to Buckingham
+Palace, where Lord Melbourne submitted the draft of the proposed
+Declaration to the Privy Council. His Lordship told the Queen that the
+Cabinet had unanimously agreed that L50,000 would be an appropriate annual
+allowance for the Prince, and that they anticipated no Parliamentary
+opposition to that amount. He also stated that there had been a stupid
+attempt to make it out that he was a Roman Catholic, and that "he was
+afraid to say anything about his religion," and accordingly had not
+touched upon it in the Declaration. This turned out, as we shall see, a
+very unwise omission; it actually gave colour and consistency to the
+absurd report.
+
+[Sidenote: ANNOUNCEMENT OF THE BETROTHAL.]
+
+On the 23rd of November, eighty-three members of the Privy Council met in
+Buckingham Palace. Precisely at two the Queen entered. She evinced much
+natural agitation, but was considerably reassured by a kindly and paternal
+look from her staunch friend, Lord Melbourne; whereupon she read the
+Declaration, which ran thus:--
+
+    I have caused you to be summoned at the present time in order that I
+    may acquaint you with my resolution in a matter which deeply concerns
+    the welfare of my people, and the happiness of my future life. It is
+    my intention to ally myself in marriage with the Prince Albert of
+    Saxe-Coburg and Gotha. Deeply impressed with the solemnity of the
+    engagement which I am about to contract, I have not come to this
+    decision without mature consideration, nor without feeling a strong
+    assurance that, with the blessing of Almighty God, it will at once
+    secure my domestic felicity and serve the interests of my country. I
+    have thought fit to make this resolution known to you at the earliest
+    period, in order that you may be apprised of a matter so highly
+    important to me and to my kingdom, and which, I persuade myself, will
+    be most acceptable to all my loving subjects.
+
+The moment the Queen had read the Declaration, Lord Lansdowne rose and
+asked, in the name of the Council, that "this most gracious and most
+welcome communication might be printed." Leave was granted, and Her
+Majesty left the room, the whole ceremony having occupied only two or
+three minutes. The Duke of Cambridge followed his niece into the
+ante-room, and warmly congratulated her. The Declaration appeared in the
+next _Gazette_, whence it was copied into all the newspapers, and was
+joyfully read and received over the whole land.
+
+There were now important questions to be settled, in Parliament, in the
+Council, and by the exercise of the Royal prerogative, as to the future
+rank and station of the Prince. Such were--Should he be made a peer? as
+had been the last consort of an English Queen, Prince George of Denmark,
+the husband of Queen Anne, of whom the only good thing that can be said
+is, that he accidentally made Arbuthnot, Pope's great friend and
+fellow-labourer, his Court physician. The idea of being made a peer was
+strenuously, sensibly, and successfully resisted by the Prince. Then there
+were the practical questions of his naturalisation, the selection of his
+Household, his position in the scale of precedence, and his income. So far
+as the Prince legitimately could and did meddle with the solution of these
+knotty points, he showed, when necessary, great sagacity, and a firmness
+very wondrous in one so young. From the very moment of his betrothal, he
+regarded himself as the custodian and guardian of his future wife's,
+rather than his own, independent position and unfettered dignity. It was
+not himself, but the husband of the Queen on behalf of whom he took a firm
+line.
+
+The Queen wished to give her husband precedence next after herself. Some
+difficulty was experienced in procuring the consent of the Royal Dukes,
+but at last their scruples were removed. Only the King of Hanover
+stubbornly held out, and the Duke of Wellington, in the House of Peers,
+declined on behalf of his party to consent. The proposal was, therefore,
+withdrawn from Parliament, but shortly after the Queen conferred a patent
+of precedence by the exercise of her own prerogative. On a similar matter
+of dispute, it was not until the Prince himself had pointed out the
+unaccountably overlooked precedent of the privilege as enjoyed by Prince
+Leopold in the life-time of the Princess Charlotte, that Garter
+King-at-Arms could be induced to withdraw his opinion adverse to Prince
+Albert quartering the Royal Arms of England with his own.
+
+In the matter of his Household, the Prince's own admirable judgment solved
+the difficulty with the clear adroitness of honest simplicity. He
+stipulated that considerations of party should have nothing to do with
+these appointments; that they should be filled by men of undoubted probity
+and purity of character; and he indicated his decided wish that they
+should be men of some kind of eminence; either very rich, very clever, or
+men who had deserved well of their country in the field of science or of
+arms. These wishes, to the Prince's considerable annoyance, were not all
+closely followed out.
+
+[Sidenote: ANNOUNCEMENT TO PARLIAMENT.]
+
+The Queen was tremendously cheered when, in January, 1840, she went to
+open Parliament, and no doubt was left in her mind as to the thorough
+popularity of the proposed union. The announcement of her intention
+contained in the Speech was a virtual repetition of that already made to
+the Council. From both sides of both Houses she was personally
+congratulated, and her choice approved, but the Duke of Wellington
+strongly objected to the omission of the statement that the Prince was a
+Protestant, with some shrewdness attributing its absence to Melbourne's
+reluctance to irritate his Irish Catholic supporters. The Duke at the same
+time repeated again and again his own perfect personal conviction in the
+thorough fidelity of the Prince to the historic and heroic Protestantism
+of his race. Lord Brougham spoke on this point, and very pertinently: "I
+may remark," he said, "that my noble friend (Lord Melbourne) is mistaken
+as to the law. There is no prohibition as to marriage with a Catholic. It
+is only attended with a penalty, and that penalty _is merely the
+forfeiture of the Crown_." In spite of this, a sentence asserting the fact
+of the Prince's Protestantism was, at the Duke of Wellington's instance,
+inserted in the Address agreed to in answer to the Speech from the Throne.
+
+There remained only the question of the Prince's annuity. Ministers
+proposed L50,000. A very large majority negatived a proposal by Mr. Hume
+to reduce it to L20,000. But the Tory leaders supported a proposal of
+Colonel Sibthorpe's to reduce it to L30,000, and by a considerable
+majority this was carried. The Queen, and her uncle Leopold, were
+extremely angry at the time at what they conceived to be the personal
+slight conveyed in this fact. But the Queen, under the wise and placable
+guidance of the Prince, afterwards learned to attribute it to the then
+heat of party rancour, still unallayed after the Bedchamber dispute; and
+the Prince at an early period of his residence in England contracted warm
+and abiding friendships with many of the men who had most strongly
+resisted Ministers on each of the above contested points.
+
+On the 28th of January, Prince Albert, accompanied by Lord Torrington and
+Colonel (now General) Grey, who had been sent to invest him with the
+insignia of the Garter and conduct him in due state to England, set out
+from Gotha, as we have already seen at a previous page. He was also
+accompanied by his father and brother. After a passing visit to King
+Leopold at Brussels, they were met at Calais by Lord Clarence Paget, who
+commanded the _Firebrand_, and escorted the distinguished visitors to the
+shores of England, at which they arrived on the 6th of February. After
+magnificent and most hearty receptions at Dover and Canterbury, they
+reached Buckingham Palace in the afternoon of Saturday, the 8th of
+February, where the Prince found his bride standing with her mother at
+the door, ready to be the first to meet and to greet him. Half an hour
+later, the Lord Chancellor administered the oath of naturalisation, and
+the Prince became a subject of Queen Victoria. A grand dinner to the
+Prince, the Ministers, and the great officers of State succeeded in the
+evening. The next day the Prince drove out, amid the cheers of immense
+crowds, to pay formal visits to all the members of the Royal Family.
+
+[Sidenote: THE WEDDING.]
+
+Monday, the 10th, was the day appointed for the wedding, which was
+magnificently celebrated in the Chapel Royal of St. James's Palace. On the
+morning of that day a larger crowd assembled in St. James's Park and its
+approaches than had been collected together in the metropolis since the
+rejoicings at the visit of the Allied Sovereigns in 1814. Not even the
+extreme inclemency of the weather abated either the patience or enthusiasm
+of the multitude. After the ladies and gentlemen of the Households of the
+Queen and the Prince had been driven along the Mall from the palace of
+residence to the palace of state, and the carriages which conveyed them
+had returned, the bridegroom was notified that all was in readiness for
+his departure. He set out, dressed as a British field-marshal, and with
+all the insignia of the Garter, the jewels of which had been a personal
+present from the Queen, having on one side his father and on the other his
+brother, both in military uniforms. He entered his carriage amid
+tremendous cheers, and the enthusiastic waving of handkerchiefs by a bevy
+of ladies privileged to stand in the grand lobbies of the palace, and was
+escorted to the chapel by a squadron of the Life Guards. On the return of
+the carriages which carried the Prince and his company, Her Majesty was
+in turn apprised that all was in readiness for her departure. She, too,
+was enthusiastically received, "but her eye was bent principally upon the
+ground." In the same carriage with the Queen rode the Duchesses of Kent
+and Sutherland. It was noticed as she drove along that she was extremely
+pale, and looked very anxious, though two or three incidents in the crowd
+caused her to smile.
+
+On her arrival at her palace of St. James's, the Queen was conducted to
+the Presence Chamber, where she remained with her maids-of-honour and
+trainbearers, awaiting the Lord Chamberlain's summons to the altar.
+Meanwhile, the colonnade within the palace, along which the bridal
+procession had to pass and repass, had been filled since early morn by the
+elite of England's rank and beauty. Each side of the way was a parterre of
+white robes, white relieved with blue, white and green, amber, crimson,
+purple, fawn, and stone colour. All wore wedding favours of lace,
+orange-flower blossoms, or silver bullion, some of great size, and many in
+most exquisite taste. Most of the gentlemen were in court dress; and the
+scene during the patient hours of waiting was made picturesque by the
+passing to and fro in various garbs of burly yeomen of the guard, armed
+with their massive halberts, slight-built gentlemen-at-arms, with
+partisans of equal slightness; elderly pages of state, and pretty pages of
+honour; officers of the Lord Chamberlain, and officers of the Woods and
+Forests; heralds all embroidery, and cuirassiers in polished steel;
+prelates in their rochets, and priests in their stoles, and singing boys
+in their surplices of virgin white.
+
+Within the chapel, in which the altar was magnificently decorated and
+laden with a profusion of gold plate, four state chairs were set, varying
+in splendour according to the rank of the destined occupants, respectively
+for Her Majesty, Prince Albert, the Queen Dowager, and the Duchess of
+Kent. The Archbishops of Canterbury and York, and the Bishop of London,
+having taken their places within the altar-rails, a flourish of trumpets
+announced the procession of the bridegroom. As the Prince passed along,
+the gentlemen greeted him with loud clapping of the hands, and the ladies
+waved their handkerchiefs with at least equal enthusiasm.
+
+[Sidenote: THE BRIDESMAIDS.]
+
+In a few minutes the procession of the bride was announced by trumpets and
+drums. It was of six or seven times the numerical strength of the
+bridegroom's, and the beauty of the twelve bridesmaids, all daughters of
+peers of the three highest grades, was specially commended. The Duchess of
+Cambridge led by the hand her then child-daughter, the Princess Mary, "and
+the mother of so beautiful a child was certainly not to be seen without
+much interest." The Duchess of Kent appeared "disconsolate and
+distressed;" while the Duke of Sussex, who was to give away the bride, was
+"in excellent spirits." The Queen herself looked "anxious and excited, and
+paler even than usual." She was dressed in a rich white satin, trimmed
+with orange-flower blossoms. She wore a wreath of the same, over which was
+a veil of rich Honiton lace, worn so as not to conceal her face. She wore
+as jewels the Collar of the Order of the Garter, with a diamond necklace
+and earrings. The bridesmaids were the Ladies Adelaide Paget, Sarah
+Villiers, Frances Cowper, Elizabeth West, Mary Grimston, Eleanor Paget,
+Caroline Lennox, Elizabeth Howard, Ida Hay, Catherine Stanhope, Jane
+Bouverie, and Mary Howard.
+
+After the conclusion of the marriage rite, the Queen hastily crossed to
+the opposite side of the altar, and kissed the Queen Dowager, who was
+standing there. She then took Prince Albert's hand, and passed down the
+aisle. On the return to Buckingham Palace, it was observed that the
+Prince, still retaining the Queen's hand in his own, whether by accident
+or design, held it in such a way as to display the wedding-ring, which was
+more solid than is usual in ordinary weddings. When the Queen had been led
+into the palace by her husband, it was observed that her morning paleness
+had entirely passed off, and that she entered her own halls with an open,
+joyous, and slightly flushed countenance.
+
+After the wedding breakfast the young couple departed, at a quarter before
+four, for Windsor, amid the cheers of the undiminished multitude. Her
+Majesty's travelling dress was a white satin pelisse, trimmed with
+swansdown, with a white satin bonnet and feather. As the cortege passed
+rapidly up Constitution Hill, the Queen bowed in return to the cheers of
+her applauding subjects with much earnestness of manner. When the Queen
+and Prince arrived at Windsor, they found the whole town illuminated, and
+received a rapturous welcome from the citizens and the Eton boys, all
+wearing favours.
+
+[Sidenote: THE WEDDING-CAKE.]
+
+We shall conclude this chapter, which we shall not desecrate by devoting
+to any other deity than Hymen, by a brief description of the Queen's
+wedding-cake, which, fortunately for our enterprise, we have succeeded in
+disinterring from the contemporary records. It was described by an
+eye-witness as consisting of all the most exquisite compounds of all the
+rich things with which the most expensive cakes can be composed, mingled
+and mixed together with delightful harmony by the most elaborate science
+of the confectioner. It weighed 300 pounds, was three yards in
+circumference, and fourteen inches in depth. On the top was a device of
+Britannia blessing the bride and bridegroom, who were dressed, somewhat
+incongruously, in the costume of ancient Rome. At the foot of the
+bridegroom was the figure of a dog, intended to denote fidelity; at the
+feet of the Queen a pair of turtle-doves. A host of gamboling Cupids, one
+of them registering the marriage in a book, and bouquets of white flowers
+tied with true-lovers' knots, completed the decorations.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV.
+
+EARLY YEARS OF MARRIED LIFE.
+
+    Difficulties and Delicacy of Prince Albert's Position--Early Married
+    Life--Studies continued--Attempts on the Queen's Life--Courage of the
+    Queen--Birth of the Princess Royal--Parting from the Whig Ladies of
+    the Bedchamber--Dark Days for England--Birth of the Prince of
+    Wales--The Queen described by M. Guizot--A Dinner at Buckingham
+    Palace--State Dinner at Windsor.
+
+
+The Queen was now married to the husband of her choice. "It is that," said
+Lord Melbourne to her, "which makes your Majesty's marriage so popular, as
+they know it is not for state reasons." A few months after the
+wedding-day, the Prince wrote to an old college associate--"I am very
+happy and contented." After the wedding, the young couple stayed for four
+days at Windsor, reading, riding, walking together, and giving small
+dinner parties in the evening. They then returned to Buckingham Palace,
+where a large crowd had collected to welcome them, and fairly commenced
+the common duties of their married life. At first it would appear that
+jealousies, in quarters which need not be specified, prevented the Prince
+taking his proper position as the head of his home and household. He wrote
+to his friend, Prince Loewenstein, in May, 1840--"I am only the husband,
+not the master in the house." But the common sense of the Queen, and the
+dignity of the Prince, soon set this matter to rights. When urged that
+she, as being Sovereign, must be the head of the house, she quietly
+rejoined that she had sworn to obey, as well as love and honour, her
+husband, and that she was determined to keep all her bridal troth. She
+communicated all foreign despatches to him, and frequently he made
+annotations on them, which were communicated to the Minister whose
+department they affected. He had often the satisfaction of discovering
+that the Minister, though he might say nothing on the subject,
+nevertheless acted upon his suggestions. His correspondence to Germany
+soon bore a very different tone and complexion. To use his own words, and
+slightly expand them, he "endeavoured to be of as much use to Victoria as
+possible." The Queen now, having received the approval of the Duke of
+Wellington, whom she consulted as a confidential friend, for the first
+time put her husband in his proper place, by giving him, by Royal Letters
+Patent, to which Parliamentary sanction is not required, rank and
+precedence next to herself, except in Parliament and the Privy Council.
+
+[Sidenote: EARLY MARRIED DAYS.]
+
+Frequent levees, and "dinners followed by little dances," formed the chief
+amusements of the young couple in the earliest stage of their married
+life. They went much, too, to the play, both having an especial relish for
+and admiration of Shakespeare. The Queen, although now a married woman, by
+no means neglected useful or solacing and refining studies. She took
+singing lessons from Lablache, and frequently sang and played with the
+Prince, sometimes using the piano, sometimes the organ as accompaniment.
+They went to Claremont, the Queen's favourite youthful haunt, to celebrate
+her birthday, and continued to do so, even after the purchase of Osborne,
+until 1848, when Claremont was given as a residence to the ex-Queen of the
+French. Both Queen and Prince were extremely glad to get away from the
+smoke and grime of London. In fact, these constituted a peculiar source of
+physical oppression to both; and they were always glad to retire to the
+rural quiet and seclusion of Claremont.
+
+[Sidenote: THE QUEEN SHOT AT.]
+
+The first alarming incident of the Queen's wedded life occurred on the
+10th of June, 1840. In her first early days of maiden queenhood, she had
+been annoyed by madmen wanting to marry her. On more than one occasion her
+saddle-horse was attempted to be stopped in the Park by one of such
+maniacs, as she was attended by an equerry; and in two instances similar
+attempts were made by innocent lunatics to force their way into Windsor
+Castle, in each case armed with nothing more deadly than a proposal of
+marriage. But what we are about to narrate was a much more serious matter.
+There is no denying the fact, that, after the first two years of her
+reign, the Queen was, for a time, by no means so popular as she had been.
+Her ministers were eminently unpopular, and to no slight extent she shared
+their unpopularity. Appalling distress prevailed, and Chartism and other
+more dangerous forms of sedition were rife. The poor asked how so much
+money could be spent on the Queen's hospitable entertainments, while they
+were starving; and inquired how it was that the name of Lord Melbourne,
+who should be supposed to have work enough to do looking after the affairs
+of the distressed nation, should appear in the newspapers almost every day
+as attending some of Her Majesty's banquets. Occasionally during the
+summer she was received in public in silence, and once or twice, in
+theatres and elsewhere, disagreeable cries were heard. More than once
+during this and one or two succeeding years, pistol-shots were fired at
+her. We select one, and the first attack upon her, as a type of the
+others. A youth named Oxford, some seventeen or eighteen years of age,
+either a fool or a madman, fired two pistol-shots at her, as she and her
+husband were driving in a phaeton up Constitution Hill. He was at once
+arrested, and it being impossible to assign any conceivable cause for the
+act, he was declared insane, and doomed to incarceration for life. Neither
+the Queen nor the Prince were injured, and both showed the utmost
+self-possession.
+
+Perhaps the best proof of her bravery on the occasion of this outrage, as
+it was an unquestionable proof of her tenderness of heart, was the fact
+that within a minute or two after the shot of Oxford had been fired, she
+had the horses' heads turned towards her mother's house, that her mother
+should see her sound and uninjured, ere an exaggerated or indiscreetly
+communicated report of the occurrence could reach her. Immediately after,
+she drove to Hyde Park, whither she had been proceeding before the outrage
+occurred, to take her usual drive before dinner. An immense concourse of
+persons of all ranks and both sexes had assembled, and the enthusiasm of
+her reception almost overpowered her. Prince Albert's face, alternately
+pale and flushed, betrayed the strength of his emotions. They returned to
+Buckingham Palace attended by a most magnificent escort of the rank and
+beauty of London, on horseback and in carriages. A great crowd of a
+humbler sort was at the Palace gates to greet her, and it was said that
+she did not lose her composure until a flood of tears relieved her
+pent-up excitement in her own chamber. "God save the Queen" was demanded
+at all the theatres in the evening, and in the immediately succeeding days
+the Queen received, seated on her throne, loyal and congratulatory
+addresses from the Peers in their robes, and wearing all their
+decorations; from the Commons, from the City Corporation, and many other
+public bodies.
+
+Oxford was incarcerated in Bethlehem Hospital, one of the great
+metropolitan lunatic asylums, in which he remained many years, and of
+which he was made one of the chief "sights" by its visitors. Perhaps it
+was this circumstance that induced the authorities to order his removal to
+Broadmoor, the state prison in which persons charged with felonious
+crimes, whose lunacy has been established, have within recent years been
+confined. There he remained until the commencement of the winter months of
+1867. During all the weary period which intervened between the
+perpetration of his offence and that date his conduct was exemplary, and
+no evidence of mental aberration appeared. At various times appeals were
+made in his behalf by influential persons who had the opportunity of
+watching his demeanour and judging his character. His own representation
+from first to last ever was that the pistol which he fired was not loaded.
+He attributed the act which so nearly cost him his life and which wasted
+the best years of his existence, to inordinate vanity, fostered by a
+variety of trivial circumstances in his domestic life, on which it is not
+necessary to dwell, and which led to a senseless desire--similar to that
+which has perpetuated the name of Erostratus, the incendiary who fired the
+Temple of Diana at Ephesus--to gain notoriety by whatever means. To a
+certain extent he educated himself during his confinement, and became a
+tolerable linguist. He also taught himself that branch of the
+house-painter's trade termed "graining," sufficiently well to enable him
+to earn a decent livelihood. At last, late in 1867, he received a free
+pardon and release, subject only to the very proper provision that he
+should expatriate himself and never return to British shores. The same
+mania, or silly senselessness, might break out again, and it is manifestly
+right that the person of the Sovereign should be protected from the vanity
+of a man who, at however distant a period, could commit the cowardly
+outrage of which he was the author.
+
+When, a year or two later, the Queen was again providentially saved from
+similar felonious attempts, their character being of the same nature as
+that of Oxford's, a strong feeling animated the general public mind that
+some special deterrent should be devised to prevent or reduce the
+likelihood of such maniacal or quasi-maniacal deeds. An Act of Parliament
+was accordingly passed, ere the close of the Session of 1843, by which
+severe flogging was imposed as part punishment in all such cases. It had
+the desired effect. From the period of its enactment until now, attempts
+to take the Queen's life, and minor assaults upon her person, have been
+almost entirely unknown.
+
+[Sidenote: BIRTH OF THE PRINCESS ROYAL.]
+
+On the afternoon of the 21st of November, the country was gladdened by the
+birth of the Queen's first-born, the Princess Royal, now Crown Princess of
+Prussia. The event occurred considerably before the period anticipated by
+the Queen's medical and other attendants, and preparations had to be made
+in a hurry. Nevertheless, the Queen soon regained her accustomed health,
+and so rapidly that we find it recorded that on the day before that
+appointed for the christening, she and a lady of the Court, exercising
+their strength and preserving their presence of mind, rescued the Prince
+from a most perilous if not fatal position. He had been skating,
+accompanied only by the Queen and one Lady-in-waiting, and had fallen
+through the ice in such a position that he could not possibly have
+extricated himself.
+
+Two days after the Princess was born, Mr. Selwyn, a gentleman with whom
+Prince Albert was reading English law and constitutional history, came to
+give his pupil his accustomed lesson. The Prince said to him, "I fear I
+cannot read any law to-day, there are so many constantly coming to
+congratulate; but you will like to see the little Princess." He took his
+tutor into the nursery, as he found that the child was asleep. Taking her
+hand, he said, "The next time we read, it must be on the rights and duties
+of a Princess Royal."
+
+In 1841 Lord Melbourne was no longer Prime Minister. Sir Robert Peel, who
+had gained the largest Parliamentary majority which had been known for
+many years, reigned in his stead. The Queen made no difficulty about the
+Ladies of the Household now. Her tastes and feelings were consulted with
+great delicacy and consideration by the Premier, and the selection of the
+Duchess of Buccleuch in the first instance as Mistress of the Robes, which
+post may be termed the female Premiership of the Household, was especially
+gratifying to Her Majesty. But her heart was, nevertheless, loth to part
+with the constant female companions of the first four years of her reign.
+Thursday, September the 2nd, was the last evening she spent with them. At
+the dinner-table she could scarcely trust herself to speak, and she is
+reported to have shed bitter tears when she retired with her ladies.
+Everybody pitied the young Sovereign, and saw and felt the hardship
+involved. But it was an inevitable accompaniment of her high position.
+
+[Sidenote: BIRTH OF THE PRINCE OF WALES.]
+
+The heir to the throne adorned by Queen Victoria was born in the midst of
+one of the very darkest periods of English history. In 1841 the condition
+of the people had been declining from the beginning of the year.
+Operatives were on half time--at last they had no work at all--and the few
+who had had the means or the will to be provident, were living on their
+savings. Public meetings were being held to consider what was to be done,
+and public subscriptions were opened. Then the idle hands commenced to
+meet in large numbers, with a sullen look of despair, waiting for death or
+alms--a comparatively small number being employed at the expense of
+municipal and other recognised bodies, in road making or road mending.
+Crime, which follows pauperism as surely and almost as rapidly as the
+obscene vulture pounces upon the carrion which is not yet cold, was rife;
+murders came in multitudes, poisonings by wholesale; murders by trades
+unionists, murders by thieves. It was when this dark cloud lowered over
+England--a cloud never completely dispelled until the rise of the great
+and glorious Free Trade sun, five years later--that the Prince of Wales
+first breathed. A _London Gazette_ extraordinary, which appeared on
+Tuesday evening, November the 9th, ran as follows:--
+
+    Buckingham Palace, Nov. 9th.
+
+    This morning, at twelve minutes before eleven o'clock, the Queen was
+    happily delivered of a Prince, His Royal Highness Prince Albert, Her
+    Royal Highness the Duchess of Kent, several Lords of Her Majesty's
+    Most Honourable Privy Council, and the Ladies of Her Majesty's
+    Bedchamber, being present.
+
+    This great and important news was immediately made known to the town
+    by the firing of the Tower and Park guns; and the Privy Council being
+    assembled as soon as possible thereupon, at the Council Chamber,
+    Whitehall, it was ordered that a Form of Thanksgiving be prepared by
+    His Grace the Archbishop of Canterbury, to be used in all churches and
+    chapels throughout England and Wales and the town of
+    Berwick-upon-Tweed, on Sunday, the 14th of November, or the Sunday
+    after the respective ministers shall receive the same.
+
+    Her Majesty and the infant Prince are, God be praised, both doing
+    well.
+
+The joy of the nation at the succession to the crown in the progeny of the
+Queen and Prince Albert being thus secured, was excessive. Upon the
+announcement of the happy accouchement, the nobility and gentry crowded to
+the Palace to tender their dutiful inquiries as to the Sovereign's
+convalescence. Amongst others, came the Lord Mayor and civic dignitaries
+in great state. They felt peculiarly proud that the Prince should have
+been born on Lord Mayor's day; in fact, just at the very moment when the
+time-honoured procession was starting from the City for Westminster. In
+memory of the happy coincidence, the Lord Mayor of the year, Mr. Pirie,
+was created Sir John Pirie, Baronet. On the 4th of December, the Queen
+created her son by Letters Patent, Prince of Wales and Earl of
+Chester:--"And him, our said and most dear son, the Prince of the United
+Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, as has been accustomed, we do
+ennoble and invest with the said Principality and Earldom, by girding him
+with a sword, by putting a coronet on his head, and a gold ring on his
+finger, and also by delivering a gold rod into his hand, that he may
+preside there, and direct and defend those parts." By the fact of his
+birth as Heir-Apparent, the Prince indefeasibly inherited, without the
+necessity of patent or creation, these dignities--the titles of Duke of
+Saxony, by right of his father; and, by right of his mother, Duke of
+Cornwall, Duke of Rothsay, Earl of Carrick, Baron of Renfrew, Lord of the
+Isles, and Great Steward of Scotland.
+
+[Sidenote: AN EMBASSY FROM FRANCE.]
+
+In the early spring of 1840, the distinguished French statesman, M.
+Guizot, came over to England, being sent hither by the French Premier,
+Marshal Soult, on a special mission with reference to those complications
+in the East, which culminated the following year in that war between the
+Sultan Mahmoud and his vassal Mehemet Ali, in which British tars under
+Stopford and "Charley Napier" played so conspicuous a part. His pacific
+mission was a failure, and from its failure dates, first the loosening,
+and then the severance, of the close relations which subsisted for eleven
+years after 1830 between the Courts of St. James's and the Tuileries.
+
+King Louis Philippe had conveyed to M. Guizot his desire that he should
+take the first opportunity of recalling to the Queen the intimacy which he
+had maintained with her father, the Duke of Kent; and Guizot resolved to
+remind Her Majesty of the circumstance when he was received by her on
+presenting his letters of credence. He prudently, however, asked Lord
+Palmerston, on whom, as Foreign Secretary, devolved the duty of presenting
+him, whether such a communication would be agreeable. Lord Palmerston
+instantly replied in the negative. He stated that the reception would be
+a purely official formality, and gave him to understand that the Queen
+would much prefer not having to reply to any speech. He therefore
+determined to abstain from making one. On the last day of February, he
+received a note at ten minutes past one from Lord Palmerston, stating that
+the Queen would be glad to receive him that day at one o'clock. Guizot
+immediately sent to Palmerston "to explain the delay, and his own
+innocence." He then dressed with all speed, and reached Buckingham Palace
+a little before two. Precisely at the moment of his arrival, Lord
+Palmerston's carriage also drove up. He told Guizot that the Queen's
+orders had been forwarded to him (Palmerston) too late. Luckily, the Queen
+had other audiences to give, which occupied her fully until the appearance
+of the two astute and rival diplomats. But another difficulty arose. There
+was no Master of Ceremonies at hand to introduce him. Sir Robert Chester,
+who held that post, had received his summons, as tardily as that which had
+been sent to Lord Palmerston. That gentleman had not hastened his
+movements so rapidly as the active Frenchman. Although a breach of form,
+Lord Palmerston, therefore, undertook and performed the office of Sir
+Robert. The Queen received Guizot "with a gracious manner at once youthful
+and serious." He remarked that the dignity of her manner caused one to
+forget the smallness of her stature. On entering, he said, "I trust,
+Madam, that your Majesty is aware of my excuse, for of myself [that is, if
+the blame of unpunctuality rested with me] I should be inexcusable." She
+smiled in return, as if little surprised at, and quite used to, the want
+of punctuality. After all, in spite of Lord Palmerston's instructions to
+him, the Queen did grant him, in the strict and literal sense of the term,
+an audience. Though short, it was long enough to enable the Queen to chat
+with him, and inquire about his Sovereign, his consort, and their family.
+The Queen, of course, was warmly interested about the Orleans family, for
+one of the daughters of its head was the second wife of her uncle, King
+Leopold, and, therefore, her matrimonial aunt. So that Guizot _did_ find
+and embrace the opportunity of reminding the Queen of the intimacy between
+his royal master and her father.
+
+[Sidenote: M. GUIZOT AT BUCKINGHAM PALACE.]
+
+As he was retiring, Lord Palmerston, who remained a moment or two with the
+Queen, after she had bid M. Guizot adieu, said hastily to him, "There is
+something more; I am going to introduce you to Prince Albert and the
+Duchess of Kent; you could not otherwise be presented to them, except at
+the next levee, on the 6th of March, but it is necessary, on the contrary,
+that on that day you should be already old friends." These further
+presentations were, accordingly, made; Guizot being struck with the
+political intelligence which the conversation of the Prince, in spite of
+his constitutional reserve, displayed. Guizot left the palace greatly
+pleased with his reception. As he passed through the hall, he saw the
+Master of Ceremonies in hot haste descending from his carriage, and
+"anxious to apologise to him, with temper somewhat ruffled, for his
+involuntary uselessness."
+
+An invitation to dinner at Buckingham Palace for five days after quickly
+reached him at his residence, Hertford House. He remarked on the want of
+animation and interest in the conversation, whether at the dinner-table or
+in the drawing-room. Politics of any kind, home or foreign, were,
+apparently to his surprise, strictly avoided. When the gentlemen joined
+the ladies, which, throughout the Queen's reign, has been at a very short
+interval after the departure of the latter from the dining-room, they all
+sat on chairs round a circular table set before the Queen, who occupied a
+sofa. Two or three of her ladies engaged themselves in fancy work; Prince
+Albert challenged some one to a game at chess. Lady Palmerston and M.
+Guizot, "with some effort," carried on a flagging dialogue. The
+conversation being thus flat, M. Guizot took to looking at the pictures on
+the walls, of which there were but three, hung over the different doors of
+the apartment. He was very much astonished at the extraordinary contrasts
+in the subjects of these pictures. They certainly were most incongruous.
+One was Fenelon, the second the Czar Peter, and the third Anne Hyde, the
+discarded wife of James II. He asked one of his fellow-guests whether the
+combination was intentional or an accident? But he could get no
+satisfaction on the subject. No one had remarked the combination, and no
+one could tell the reason for it.
+
+At the levee which he attended the day following, he was still more
+astounded and perplexed. He thought its presentations and other
+paraphernalia "a long and monotonous ceremony." Yet it inspired this keen
+and philosophic student of men and manners with "real interest." We shall
+allow M. Guizot, ere we finally leave his companionship, to express his
+views on this peculiarly English institution in his own words:--"I
+regarded with excited esteem the profound respect of that vast
+assembly--courtiers, citizens, lawyers, churchmen, officers, military and
+naval, passing before the Queen, the greater portion bending the knee to
+kiss her hand, all perfectly solemn, sincere, and awkward. The sincerity
+and seriousness were both needed to prevent those antiquated habits, wigs,
+and bags, those costumes which no one in England now wears except on such
+occasions, from appearing somewhat ridiculous. But I am little sensible to
+the outward appearance of absurdity when the substance partakes not of
+that character."
+
+[Sidenote: FANCY BALL AT COURT.]
+
+As a companion picture of the Queen at home at this epoch of her reign,
+for the lineaments of which we have acknowledged our indebtedness to M.
+Guizot, we present these recollections of the Queen in her young married
+days, which we condense from a gossiping work by Lord William Lennox. The
+Queen had a splendid new ballroom built in Buckingham Palace, and nothing
+could exceed the brilliancy of the entertainments which she gave there. To
+one of these, in 1842, Lord Lennox received an invitation. It was a _bal
+costume_, the first, he believed, which had ever been given in England by
+a Prince of the House of Brunswick. A second ball, in which, unlike the
+former, the dresses were confined to the reigns of George II. and III.,
+was given in the same year. All had to appear in powder--a somewhat trying
+ordeal to such ladies and gentlemen as did not possess fine features.
+
+[Sidenote: A STATE BANQUET AT WINDSOR.]
+
+Somewhat about the same time, Lord Lennox dined at Windsor Castle, at the
+great banquet given on the Ascot Cup day. A magnificent dejeuner had been
+served for luncheon on the course in Tippoo Sahib's tent. At the dinner in
+the evening, the first thing which struck one who was a guest for the
+first time on such an occasion, was the exact punctuality of the Queen
+and Prince. Although necessarily fatigued with the bustle and excitement
+of the day, they were in the drawing-room some minutes before the dinner
+was announced, and after a courteous greeting to all the guests, proceeded
+at once to dinner. Another observable peculiarity was that the Prince left
+the table twenty minutes after the ladies. The banqueting-room on this
+great occasion was St. George's Hall, splendid with its ceiling emblazoned
+with the arms of the Knights of the Garter from the institution of the
+order, and the portraits of our kings from James I. to George IV. At each
+end of the hall, buffets, seventeen feet high and forty broad, were set.
+They were of rich fretted Gothic framework, covered with crimson cloth,
+and brilliant with massive gold plate. Immediately opposite the Queen was
+set a pyramid of plate, its apex being the tiger's head captured at
+Seringapatam, and comprising the "Iluma" of precious stones which Lord
+Wellesley, the Governor-General of India, presented to George IV. The
+table, which was laid for a hundred guests, extended the whole length of
+the hall. All down the centre, epergnes, vases, cups, and candelabra were
+ranged, the celebrated St. George's candelabrum being opposite Her
+Majesty. The hall was splendidly illuminated, and two bands of the Guards
+discoursed sweet music from a balcony. The Yeomen of the Guard stood on
+duty at the entrance. The repast, which did ample justice to the merits of
+the Queen's renowned _cuisinier_, Francatelli, was entirely served in gold
+plate, and the attendance was so faultless that there was less bustle and
+confusion than usually attend a repast shared by a party of ten or a
+dozen. At a quarter to nine grace was said; and after the dessert and wine
+had been placed on the table, the Lord Steward rose and proposed, without
+remark, "The Queen." The Queen simply, when the toast had been drunk,
+bowed her acknowledgments. After a brief pause, the health of Prince
+Albert was drunk standing, as the Queen's had been, the band playing the
+"Coburg March." At half-past nine the Queen rose, and, accompanied by the
+Duchess of Kent, was followed by all the ladies to the drawing-room. In
+about twenty minutes all the gentlemen followed. The Waterloo Chamber was
+thrown open, and its rich historical and pictorial treasures were keenly
+inspected by groups of the guests. Amongst others of its chief ornaments,
+attention was concentrated on the swords of the Pretenders James and
+Charles, Prince Rupert's coat of mail, and the magnificent shield, by
+Cellini, presented by Francis I. to King Henry VIII., at the Field of the
+Cloth of Gold. But the great treat of the evening was the appearance of
+Madame Rachel, who, with two or three French actors, gave _morceaux_ from
+her principal impersonations. The success of her performance was the more
+conspicuous that it was entirely unaided by scenery, dress, or other
+histrionic accompaniment. A little before twelve the Queen, after
+addressing with the utmost grace some words of courteous appreciation to
+the great _tragedienne_, and bowing to the assembled guests, retired,
+leaning on her husband's arm.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV.
+
+THE QUEEN IN SCOTLAND.
+
+    Christening of the Prince of Wales--Manufacturing Distress--Queen's
+    Efforts to alleviate it--Assesses Herself to the Income Tax--Resolves
+    to Visit Scotland--Embarks at Woolwich--Beacon Fires in the Firth of
+    Forth--Landing on Scottish Soil--A Disappointment--Formal Entry into
+    Edinburgh--Richness of Historical and Ancestral Associations--The
+    Queen on the Castle Rock--A Highland Welcome--Departure from Scotland.
+
+
+The Session of 1842 was opened by the Queen in person with unusual
+splendour, which was enhanced by the presence of the King of Prussia, who
+had come over to stand sponsor to the Prince of Wales. The christening was
+performed on the 25th of January, and was attended with all due
+magnificence, and succeeded by a splendid banquet. Mr. Raikes, in his
+amusing, valuable journal, thus records the event:--
+
+    _Tuesday, 25th._--The day of the Royal christening at Windsor. The
+    Prince of Wales is named Albert Edward. All who have been there say
+    that the scene was very magnificent, and the display of plate at the
+    banquet superb. After the ceremony a silver-embossed vessel containing
+    a whole hogshead of mulled claret was introduced, and served in
+    bucketfuls to the company, who drank the young Prince's health. Very
+    few ladies were invited.
+
+[Sidenote: NATIONAL DISTRESS AND ROYAL SYMPATHY.]
+
+The Queen's speech of this year noticed with deep regret the continued
+distress in the manufacturing districts of the country, and bore testimony
+to the exemplary patience and fortitude with which it had been borne.
+Many people began once more to murmur at the continued flow of gaiety at
+Windsor where the young parents still seemed to experience the first
+thrills of transport at the birth of a son and heir. Some of the lowest
+class of seditious newspapers began the practice of printing in parallel
+columns the description of the fancy dresses at the Queen's balls (the
+purchase and preparation of which must certainly have tended to alleviate
+the distress), &c., and reports from the pauperised districts, records of
+deaths from starvation, and the like. Among the unthinking classes such
+disloyal practices produced a very deep feeling of dissatisfaction. In the
+course of the year two attempts were reported as having been made upon the
+Queen's life: one, however, being merely the freak of an ill-natured boy,
+but the other was of a much more serious description, and cost its author
+transportation for life. Sir Robert Peel felt it his duty to discharge the
+part of a faithful Minister, and to counsel his Royal mistress to lessen
+the gaieties of the Court, even if it were only in deference to the
+prejudices of the starving and maddened poor. He neither roused nor
+augmented her fears, but gave her the counsel which the time required. The
+Queen at once acted, and without taking offence, upon the Minister's
+advice. At the christening of the Prince of Wales all the ladies of the
+Court appeared in Paisley shawls, English lace, and other articles of home
+manufacture. And when the christening was over a marked sobriety settled
+down over the Court, and continued during all the summer of 1842. Even the
+most querulous speedily granted that they had no reason to complain.
+
+This change in the sentiments of the public, especially its lower and more
+distressed portions, was promoted and accelerated by an act, equally
+tasteful and touching, of Her Majesty during this year. In the spring of
+1842, Sir Robert Peel, now thoroughly warm in his seat as Premier,
+commanding a large working majority, and not yet having awakened the
+hostility of the decidedly Protectionist section of his followers,
+inaugurated that splendid series of bravely devised measures in the
+direction of Free Trade, of which the great Anti-Corn Law Act of four
+years later was, so far as he was concerned, the culmination. In 1842,
+Peel proposed and carried a Budget which considerably lessened the burden
+of Customs imposts, but the chief merit and recommendation of which
+consisted in the fact that it relieved the nation of the incubus of a host
+of very galling excise duties on such articles of common use as glass,
+leather, bricks, and soap. These beneficial remissions of taxation could
+not have been effected by him--for they entailed a heavy cost upon the
+revenue, already inadequate to meet the annual expenditure--but for the
+re-imposition of an Income Tax, a means of raising revenue which had been
+long disused, to the extent of sevenpence in the pound on all incomes
+above L150 of annual value. This, of course, did not affect the allowance
+made to the Sovereign. Nevertheless, Her Majesty evinced her sympathy at
+once with the prevailing distress and with the daring fiscal expedient of
+the Premier, by coming forward unsolicited to offer to receive an
+abatement of her income, based upon the precise scale of that imposed by
+Parliament upon her subjects.
+
+Up to the Queen's reign, the members of the House of Brunswick had never
+been peripatetic in their tendencies. The first two Georges had made
+frequent visits to their patrimonial German electorate, but they evinced
+no desire to visit England beyond the immediate environs of London. George
+III. never passed out of England; George IV. visited Ireland and Scotland
+each on one occasion; but with these exceptions, hardly any British
+highways were traversed by his wheels during his reign, whether as
+Sovereign Regent or Regnant, except the great roads connecting his capital
+with Windsor, Brighton, and Newmarket. William IV. was too old when he
+came to the throne to make it at all probable that he would evince any
+taste to visit any of the outlying portions of his dominions; nor did he
+do so. Queen Victoria, as we have copiously seen in earlier chapters, was
+from her very infancy habituated to moving about from place to place, and
+all along she has proved herself as proud as Queen Elizabeth herself of
+mingling with and showing herself to her people.
+
+[Sidenote: FIRST VISIT TO SCOTLAND.]
+
+For some time the Queen was understood to have contemplated a journey to
+the land of those Stuart ancestors by virtue of whose Tudor blood they,
+and the Brunswick line through them, and she through it, inherited the
+British crown. In the autumn of this year all seemed propitious for the
+journey, and it was undertaken accordingly by herself and her young
+husband. Their first destination was the Scottish capital, and as the
+railway system connecting the southern and northern extremities of the
+island was yet far from complete, the journey was made by water from the
+Thames to the Forth, the port of embarkation being Woolwich, and of
+debarkation, Granton, a minor harbour in the immediate neighbourhood of
+Edinburgh.
+
+The expected visit was awaited and prepared for in the North with the
+utmost eagerness of expectancy. Half Scotland seemed to have emptied
+itself into the metropolis to do her honour. In their preparations,
+burgher vied with noble, tartan-clad Highlanders with Lowlanders in their
+more sombre blue bonnets and hodden grey. On the 29th of August, the Queen
+left Windsor, and proceeded to Woolwich, where she embarked amid the
+acclamations of her metropolitan and Kentish subjects at an early hour of
+the same day. In a Royal yacht, towed by a steam ship of war, the voyage
+was safely effected in the fine weather and on the placid wave of early
+autumn. In due time the Royal squadron arrived off Dunbar, which, with the
+Bass Rock and Tantallon Castle, form together a fine _coup-d'oeil_ of
+romantic coast scenery and middle age antiquity, at the mouth of the Firth
+of Forth. Here it was met by large steamers filled by welcomers from
+Edinburgh and its neighbourhood, who greeted their illustrious visitors
+with loud huzzahs, and the strains of that National Anthem, which, though
+of English birth, was chaunted right lustily by Scottish lungs and lips.
+It was observed that Her Majesty, who came on board and acknowledged the
+vivas of her subjects, had paid the Scots the compliment of enveloping
+herself in a Paisley shawl; and when, a day or two later, she made her
+formal entry past the church sanctified by the preaching of John Knox, to
+the Castle, in a narrow chamber of which her unfortunate ancestor Queen
+Mary bore her son King James, she wore, with even more conspicuously
+appropriate taste, a shawl of Stuart tartan.
+
+[Sidenote: LANDING ON SCOTTISH SOIL.]
+
+As she passed up the Firth, under cover of the gathering night, every peak
+on either side of the estuary, from St. Abb's Head, which she had left
+behind, away westwards to the Pentlands, the Lomonds, and the Ochils, was
+surmounted by a blazing beacon--a splendid sight, and stimulative by
+contrast to the imaginations of those who recollected to what different
+uses beacon-fires on Scottish hills and Scottish Border Keeps had been put
+in earlier days of the international relations of England and Scotland.
+The fiery welcome was returned from the Royal yacht, by the letting off of
+rockets, and the burning of blue lights.
+
+At last the squadron came in sight in the roads before Leith, the anchor
+being let down--"a welcome sound," wrote the Queen--at a quarter to one
+o'clock on the morning of Thursday, September the 1st. Every one of the
+heights on or under the domination of which Edinburgh stands, had been
+crowded all the previous day with tens of thousands of spectators. All at
+once two guns from the castle, and a signal flag hoisted from the summit
+of Nelson's column, some 400 feet above the level of the sea, announced
+the arrival. The Queen slept and rested herself after the fatigues of her
+voyage on board the Royal yacht; and she took her good but inalert
+subjects by surprise, by effecting her landing at an hour so early on the
+succeeding morning, that many of them, wearied by their recent vigils, had
+not yet left their couches, and even the corporate dignitaries were
+subject to the mortification of not having the honour to receive and
+welcome their Queen as her foot first touched Scottish soil. In their
+absence, that pleasurable duty was discharged by Sir Robert Peel, and the
+Duke of Buccleuch, whose guest she was about to be at his palace of
+Dalkeith, and who had ridden immediately after her carriage, as
+Captain-General of her body-guard of Scottish Archers, on the day on which
+she was crowned queen at Westminster. Sir Robert Peel told the Queen that
+the people were all in the highest glee and good humour, though a little
+disappointed at the non-arrival of the squadron the day before, as had
+been expected.
+
+With the extraordinarily auspicious fatality which has made "Queen's
+weather" so trite and proverbial an expression, the sun splendidly burst
+forth at the moment of her landing, and continued to shine throughout her
+progress through a portion of the New Town of Edinburgh; its bright
+freestone streets and terraces sparkling in the clear, sunlit air--past
+her ancient Palace of Holyrood, and so through fertile Lothian to the
+mansion of the princely head of the old Border House of the Scotts. When
+the customary ensign was hauled down from the top of the rugged Castle
+Rock, and the Royal Standard was hoisted in its place, the streets at once
+filled, and the loyal shouts of the crowds, who hastily assembled in no
+small force, sufficiently atoned for the absence of those whom the
+somewhat unexpected arrival balked for this one day of the delight of
+expressing their devotion.
+
+[Sidenote: FIRST IMPRESSIONS OF SCOTLAND.]
+
+The impression which her first view of Edinburgh made upon the Queen was
+very striking and most favourable. She thought it "beautiful, totally
+unlike anything else she had seen." Even Prince Albert, a great traveller
+while yet in his teens, and who had visited very many great and renowned
+cities, also said it was unlike anything which he had witnessed. The
+massive stone buildings, with not a solitary brick used in their
+construction; the great dorsal fin of the High Street; the magnificent
+situation of the Castle; the Calton Hill, guarded by mediaeval battlements
+and crowned by Choragic temples, with the noble back-ground of Arthur's
+Seat overtopping the whole, together impressed the youthful tourists as
+"forming altogether a splendid spectacle."
+
+As the carriages drove through the city, the Earl of Wemyss, who marched
+by the Queen's side in his green uniform of a Scottish Archer of the
+Guard, pointed out to Her Majesty the varied objects of interest on the
+line of route through the eastern portions of the city to the Duke of
+Buccleuch's palace of Dalkeith. When they got into the open country, she
+was further astonished to find that not only all the cottages, but even
+the fences dividing field from field, were also built of stone. The
+peasants by the wayside were equally objects of curiosity and interest, as
+they had "quite a different character from England and the English." The
+close caps--_Scottice_, "mutches"--of the old women, and the long, flowing
+hair, frequently red, of the handsome girls and children, were equal
+novelties to the royal "Southrons." The Prince was struck with the
+resemblance of the country people to Germans. Other Scottish specialties
+appeared at the breakfast-table at Dalkeith, in the form of oatmeal
+porridge and "Finnan Haddies"--the first of which, at least, found
+immediate favour with Her Majesty.
+
+The grand ceremonial of entering the ancient city in state was reserved
+for the Saturday after the arrival; the interval having been devoted by
+the royal party to quiet and repose in the magnificent domain of
+Buccleuch, and drives to objects of interest in its neighbourhood. The
+line of the cavalcade, on this red-letter day, was up the steep ascent of
+the Canongate, High Street, and Lawnmarket, from the Palace of Holyrood
+(which the Queen rightly pronounced "a royal-looking old place") to the
+Castle which the Black Douglas scaled, where George Buchanan's pedantic
+Stuart pupil was born, and from the parapets of which various and shifting
+prospects are to be descried, which may be equalled, but cannot be
+surpassed, in any portion of Her Majesty's dominions.
+
+[Sidenote: THE QUEEN IN EDINBURGH CASTLE.]
+
+It was indeed historic ground along which the Queen passed this day. Every
+one of the stupendous houses of eight, ten, or even more stories, which
+formed a mighty avenue of stone on either side of the ancient causeway
+along which the steeds which drew her carriage slowly and deliberately
+proceeded, had some tale of long gone days to tell, many of them being
+most intimately associated with the fortunes of her Stuart ancestors. On
+her way she passed the site of that tower in which Darnley, her ancestor,
+was blown into eternity. Ere she left her Palace of Holyrood and the
+adjacent ruins of the abbey which was erected by that Scottish king who
+built and endowed so many abbeys that his subjects piteously exclaimed
+that he was a "saur saunt for the Croon," she may have seen the
+blood-stains of Rizzio, and the somewhat mythical portraits of the Kings
+of the Houses of Kenneth, Bruce, and the Stuarts. On one side of her was
+the old mansion of the Regent Moray, on the other the spot where, for the
+first and only time, the boy Francis Jeffrey set eyes upon Robert Burns.
+Here was the ancient oaken hall where the Scottish Parliament sate, there
+the office of that Scottish journal of which Daniel Defoe, the staunch and
+loyal friend of William III., was the first editor. Here was the house in
+which John Knox lived and died, there the church in which he preached with
+such fervour for that Protestant faith, with the establishment of which in
+Europe both lines of her ancestors were so intimately identified. And when
+she arrived on the esplanade of the Castle itself, she could look across
+the Forth on the one side to the minor mountain which casts its morning
+shadow into Loch Leven, from her captivity on an islet of which Scottish
+Catholic gentlemen so gallantly rescued her Stuart ancestress; while
+immediately beneath her lay the Grassmarket--at once the Tower and the
+Smithfield of Scotland--where Montrose and Argyll expiated respectively
+their loyalty to the Stuart race, and to freedom of soul and speech.
+
+As the cortege passed up the streets along which Prince Charlie had passed
+when he held court at Holyrood just ninety-seven years before, as she
+received at the site of the old Tolbooth the keys of the city from the
+Lord Provost, bending the knee beside his fellow-burghers, clad in the old
+costumes of the Trades, and close beside a guard of honour of Highlanders
+headed by the present Duke of Argyll; or as she stood surveying from the
+topmost battery of the citadel her fair ancestral domains of Lothian and
+Fife, and the distant mountains which tower o'er Loch Lomond and the
+Trossachs, some such proud and pathetic recollections as these must have
+occupied and touched the heart of the youngest and the mightiest monarch
+in Europe. Their closer acquaintance with Edinburgh increased the mingled
+amazement and delight of the Queen and Prince. Prince Albert pronounced
+the view of it from the margin of the Firth of Forth as "fairy-like,"
+"what you would imagine as a thing to dream of, or to see in a picture."
+He said he felt sure the Acropolis could not be finer, and the Queen at
+once recognised the appropriateness of the idealised metamorphosis of
+"Auld Reekie" (_Anglice_, "Old Smoky") into "the Modern Athens." The Leith
+ticket-porters, mounted on flower-decked horses, with broad,
+ribbon-decorated Kilmarnock bonnets, and the pretty Newhaven fishwives,
+with their clear, peachy complexions and Danish costumes, were objects of
+peculiar interest.
+
+[Sidenote: THE QUEEN IN THE HIGHLANDS.]
+
+Space fails us to enter into details of the further incidents of this, the
+Queen's first visit to her Scottish dominion. Enough to say that she
+received in the Highlands, where she visited in succession not a few of
+her oldest nobles of Gaelic and Norman descent, receptions as rapturous as
+that which she experienced in the Modern Athens. The welcome, if it could
+not be more hearty, was at least attended with more picturesque
+accessories in the romantic region where the dialect and the "garb of Old
+Gael" still to a large extent prevail. At Dupplin Castle, at Scone Palace,
+where her ancestors were crowned, at Blair Athole, at Taymouth, and at
+Drummond Castle, she was entertained with equal splendour, and with the
+true and special elements of "Highland Welcome." She may be almost said to
+have passed through a continuous succession of triumphal arches. Every
+chieftain brought out all his available clansmen, all in kilts, claymores,
+and Glengarry bonnets, to act as guards of honour. Balls, in which the
+national dances, performed by the best born cadets of the noble houses of
+whom she was the guest, constituted the chief feature, alternated with
+deer-stalking, for the especial behoof of the Prince; processions of boats
+on the lake through which rolls the Tay, a river only less rapid than the
+Spey; and visits to places of historic interest or romantic beauty.
+
+The Queen was especially charmed with the beautiful situation of the
+ancient city of Perth, and the enthusiastic reception which the multitudes
+there assembled gave to her. Prince Albert, too, was delighted, and
+likened the appearance of the place to Basle. At Scone Palace, which is
+within two miles of Perth, a very natural object of peculiar interest was
+the mound on which all the Scottish kings had been crowned. At Dunkeld the
+Highlands were fairly entered; and here the Royal party were met and
+escorted by a guard of Athole Highlanders, armed with halberts, and headed
+by a piper. One of them danced the sword dance, with which the travellers
+were greatly amused, and others of them figured in a reel.
+
+The longest sojourn made in the Highlands was at Taymouth, the seat of the
+Marquis of Breadalbane. The scenery here again revived recollections of
+Switzerland in the memory of Prince Albert, who was particularly prone, in
+this and subsequent visits to the North, to trace resemblances between its
+scenery and localities which he had visited in the tours of his bachelor
+days. The reception at Taymouth was magnificent, and quite captivated the
+illustrious guests. The Queen wrote in her journal--
+
+    The _coup d'oeil_ was indescribable. There were a number of Lord
+    Breadalbane's Highlanders, all in the Campbell tartan, drawn up in
+    front of the house, with Lord Breadalbane himself in a Highland dress
+    at their head; a few of Sir Niel Menzies' men (in the Menzies red and
+    white tartan), a number of pipers playing, and a company of the 92nd
+    Highlanders, also in kilts. The firing of the guns, the cheering of
+    the great crowd, the picturesqueness of the dresses, the beauty of the
+    surrounding country, with its rich back-ground of wooded hills,
+    altogether formed one of the finest scenes imaginable. It seemed as if
+    a great chieftain in olden feudal times was receiving his Sovereign.
+    It was princely and romantic.
+
+Wherever the Queen rambled during her stay by the shores of Loch Tay, she
+was guarded by two Highlanders, and it recalled to her mind "olden times,
+to see them with their swords drawn." Walking one day with the Duchess of
+Norfolk, the Queen and her noble companion met "a fat, good-humoured
+little woman." She cut some flowers for the ladies, and the Duchess handed
+to her some money, saying, "From Her Majesty." The poor woman was
+perfectly astounded, but, recovering her wits, came up to the Queen, and
+said naively that "her people were delighted to see the Queen in
+Scotland." Wherever the royal visitors were, or went, the inevitable
+strains of the bagpipes were heard. They played before the Castle at
+frequent intervals throughout the day, from breakfast till dinner-time,
+and invariably when they went in or out of doors. When rowed in boats on
+the lake, two pipers sat in the bows and played; and the Queen, who had
+grown "quite fond" of the bagpipes, was reminded of the lines of Scott,
+with whose poems she had, from an early age, possessed the most intimate
+familiarity:--
+
+    "See the proud pipers in the bow,
+    And mark the gaudy streamers flow
+    From their loud chambers down, and sweep
+    The furrow'd bosom of the deep,
+    As, rushing through the lake amain,
+    They plied the ancient Highland strain."
+
+[Sidenote: DEPARTURE FROM SCOTLAND.]
+
+On the 13th of September the return journey from the Highlands by
+Stirling, the ancient Castle of which was visited, to Dalkeith Palace, had
+been completed. Two days later the Queen and Prince re-embarked at
+Granton, _en route_ for Woolwich and Windsor.
+
+Although a by no means excessive quantity of time--but a fortnight--was
+consumed in the tour, some idea of the rapidity with which distances were
+traversed, and the extent of ground covered, may be gathered from the fact
+that no fewer than 656 post-horses were employed. The Queen touched the
+hearts of the Highlanders--among whom Jacobitism remained, not as an
+element of personal devotion to a fallen house, but not the less as a deep
+chord of pathos and poetry--by commanding a Scottish vocalist, at a
+concert given in her honour at Blair Athole, to sing two of the most
+beloved of Jacobite songs--"Cam' ye by Athole," and "Wae's me for Prince
+Charlie." When she once more embarked at Granton on her homeward route,
+she left memories of pleasure and affection which far exceeded the
+intensely ardent excitement which had preceded and greeted her landing. On
+the last day which she spent in Scotland, the Queen wrote in her
+journal--"This is our last day in Scotland; it is really a delightful
+country, and I am very sorry to leave it." And the day after, watching its
+vanishing coast--"As the fair shores of Scotland receded more and more
+from our view, we felt quite sad that this very pleasant and interesting
+tour was over; but we shall never forget it."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI.
+
+WHAT ENGLAND OWES TO PRINCE ALBERT.
+
+    The Prince's Study of our Laws and Constitution--Two Misconceptions
+    Outlived--His Versatility--First Speech an Anti-Slavery One--His
+    Appreciation and Judicious Criticism of Art--Scientific Side of his
+    Mind--As an Agriculturist.
+
+
+It will not be undesirable at this stage of our narrative to interpose a
+summary compendium of some indications of the manner in which Prince
+Albert, or the "Prince Consort," as he was designated by Royal Letters
+Patent, after 1857, discharged the high, onerous, and important duties to
+which his position called him. If the conduct and career of a husband be
+an integral and large part of a woman's life, it is tenfold more so in the
+case of a woman who is also a queen, and especially a queen-regnant in and
+by her own right. The large and enlarging breadth of mind which the Prince
+soon began to display; the abundant tenderness of heart, which found at
+once indication and exercise in the admirable and diverse modes in which
+he advanced all agencies of public utility and associated benevolence; the
+excellent mode in which, equally as a father and a husband, he evinced the
+warm glow of domestic virtue which animated his bosom, and the absolute
+and much-wanted scientific and artistic lessons which he taught more than
+any other man, during his life in England, to the somewhat uncouth people
+of whom he became a part--all these, and other elements of character and
+conduct, indirectly increased the growing esteem in which the Queen was
+held, on her own merits, by her people; for we might have had to look
+forward to a different national future, so far as a national future can be
+moulded in the sense of either making or marring, had the "father of our
+future kings" been other and lesser than what he was. Such a man as the
+Prince Consort must necessarily have wielded a very large and weighty
+influence upon the character of the royal lady whom he married. The
+history of her life, therefore, even if it were traced within narrower
+limits than those within whose compression our task must be discharged,
+would be insufficiently delineated without the introduction of such
+episodical but most relevant matter as that to which this chapter is
+briefly dedicated.
+
+Almost the first task which the Prince Consort undertook when he came
+amongst us was to set himself to an assiduous study of our laws and
+institutions. He secured the services of a most competent instructor in
+themes so important to one who stood so near the throne, in the person of
+the late Mr. William Selwyn, Q.C. Mr. Selwyn was a sound jurist, and under
+his guidance the Prince read such works as Blackstone, De Lolme, Hallam,
+Bentham, and Mill. He proved himself an apt student, for he had the
+capacity for study eminently developed; and, besides, his position was one
+of singular difficulty and delicacy. He stood so near to the throne,
+amongst a people, too, traditionally jealous of aliens, and especially of
+aliens in high places, that any utterance he might be called upon to make
+would be considered as almost, if not quite, emanating from the throne
+itself. Although a certain cabinet intrigue, and one rare expression of
+his own--not so much unguarded in itself, as wanting in explicitness, and
+capable of a certain misconstruction--did, on two several occasions,
+provoke in certain quarters something approaching to national disfavour,
+he soon outlived the misconception; and the universal sentiment of the
+people came round to the conviction that the Prince was faithful and loyal
+to the constitution to which he had sworn fidelity; nay more, that he had
+fairly caught, apprehended, and absorbed into his being the very genius
+and spirit of the English race.
+
+[Sidenote: PRINCE ALBERT S FIRST SPEECH.]
+
+The first speech the Prince made in England was at an anti-slavery
+meeting; the last at the opening of an international statistical congress.
+The former was delivered during the first summer of his married life. It
+is so brief, and it gives, as it were, so thoroughly the key-note of his
+character, that our readers will thank us for giving it entire:--
+
+    I have been induced to preside at the meeting of this society from a
+    conviction of its paramount importance to the great interests of
+    humanity and justice. I deeply regret that the benevolent and
+    persevering exertions of England to abolish that atrocious traffic in
+    human beings (at once the desolation of Africa and the blackest stain
+    upon civilised Europe) have not as yet led to any satisfactory
+    conclusion. But I sincerely trust that this great country will not
+    relax in its efforts until it has finally, and for ever, put an end to
+    a state of things so repugnant to the spirit of Christianity and the
+    best feelings of our nature. Let us, therefore, trust that Providence
+    will prosper our exertions in so holy a cause, and that (under the
+    auspices of our Queen and her Government) we may, at no distant
+    period, be rewarded by the accomplishment of the great and humane
+    object for the promotion of which we have this day met.
+
+We have already remarked the wide range of Prince Albert's endeavours,
+study, devotion, and consequent usefulness. He presided at dinners of the
+Literary Fund, and of the Royal Academy; at the Trinity House most
+frequently, and at many agricultural meetings. Two of the best and most
+pregnant with good of his addresses, were delivered at the meetings of
+associations designed respectively for the better housing of labourers,
+and in behalf of the large and sorely tempted class of domestic servants.
+Now he presided at the Bicentenary of the Corporation of the Sons of the
+Clergy; again at the two hundredth anniversary of one of our most
+illustrious regiments of Foot Guards. On art, as all were prepared to
+expect, he delivered ripe words of wisdom at the Royal Academy in
+Trafalgar Square, and in laying the foundation in the capital of his
+wife's Stuart ancestors of a new National Gallery for her Scottish
+subjects. Against the expectation, and to the loudly expressed surprise of
+all, save those who knew him thoroughly, he made a most admirable survey
+of the sciences and their uses, at one of the last meetings held ere his
+death, of the British Association for the Advancement of Science. Of art
+he was a judicious critic, as well as a munificent patron. It was at his
+special wish and option that the _savant_ Lyon Playfair was made one of
+his Equerries; and that a residence in Hampton Court Palace was put at the
+disposal of Michael Faraday.
+
+How much of mingled love for art and artists, and at the same time of
+criticism most kindly and sagacious, is to be found in these brief
+sentences, extracted from his great speech at the Royal Academy dinner:--
+
+    An unkind word of criticism passes like a cold blast over their tender
+    shoots, and shrivels them up, checking the flow of the sap, which was
+    rising to produce, perhaps, multitudes of flowers and fruits. But
+    still criticism is absolutely necessary to the development of art,
+    and the injudicious praise of an inferior work becomes an insult to
+    superior genius. In this respect, our times are peculiarly favourable
+    when compared with those when Madonnas were painted in the seclusion
+    of convents; for we have now on the one hand the eager competition of
+    a vast array of artists of every degree of talent and skill, and on
+    the other, as judge, a great public, for the greater part wholly
+    uneducated in art, and thus led by professional writers who often
+    strive to impress the public with a great idea of their own artistic
+    knowledge, by the merciless manner in which they treat works which
+    cost those who produced them the highest efforts of mind or feeling.
+
+And again, as a companion and worthy picture--which is none the less, but
+all the more, worthy of hanging along with that we have just presented,
+that the great truth it teaches is presented with such lucid
+simplicity--take these sentences explanatory of the scope and end of such
+institutions as the British Association for the Advancement of Science,
+delivered by him as its President, at the 1859 Congress at Aberdeen:--
+
+[Sidenote: THE PRINCE'S EULOGY ON HUMBOLDT.]
+
+    If the activity of this Association ever found, or could find its
+    personification in one individual--its incarnation as it were--this
+    had been found in that distinguished and revered philosopher who has
+    been removed from amongst us in his ninetieth year, within the last
+    few months. Alexander Von Humboldt ever strove after dominion over
+    that universality of human knowledge which stands in need of
+    thoughtful government and direction to preserve its integrity. He
+    strove to tie up the fasces of scientific knowledge, to give them
+    strength in unity. He treated all scientific men as members of one
+    family, enthusiastically directing, fostering, and encouraging
+    inquiry, where he saw either the want of or the willingness for it.
+    His protection of the young and ardent student led many to success in
+    their pursuits. His personal influence with the courts and governments
+    of most countries in Europe, enabled him to plead the cause of science
+    in a manner which made it more difficult to refuse than to grant what
+    he requested. All lovers of Science deeply mourn for the loss of such
+    a man. Gentlemen, it is a singular coincidence, that this very day on
+    which we are here assembled, and are thus giving expression to our
+    admiration of him, should be the anniversary of his birth.
+
+The Queen, who was staying at Balmoral, was very anxious about the manner
+in which her husband should pass the very severe ordeal of delivering an
+address to the assembled men of science. She recorded her high
+gratification at learning by telegram that "Albert's reception was
+admirable, and that all was going off as well as possible. Thank God!" She
+invited the _savans_, to a fete at her Highland home; they accepted the
+invitation in great numbers; and "the philosophers," of whom Her Majesty
+was not a little, and rather comically, afraid, were not only entertained
+with creature comforts, but the somewhat novel combination was presented
+of Owen, Brewster, Sabine, and Murchison, with their brethren of lesser
+renown, standing as spectators of contests of strength between athletes of
+the Grant, Farquharson, Duff, and other clans. Some of the more
+distinguished guests remained over night, and at dinner they rejoiced the
+Queen's heart by "speaking in very high terms of my beloved Albert's
+speech, the good it had done, and the general satisfaction it had caused."
+
+[Sidenote: THE PRINCE AS AN AGRICULTURIST.]
+
+Probably the capacity of all others in which the Prince became most
+generally familiar to the nation, was that of a practical, improving,
+scientific agriculturist; and we use this word in its twofold sense, as
+embracing the growing of crops and the rearing of live stock. Almost from
+the outset of his career amongst us he commenced a series of scientific
+agricultural experiments on the farms in Windsor Park. He renovated the
+agriculture of the Park, as much as he confessedly did its landscape
+gardening. He became a constant and most successful exhibitor of live
+domestic edible animals at the great agricultural shows; his example in
+this field having been followed since his death, to the great
+gratification of the agricultural interest, both by his widow and his
+eldest son; and, especially in the case of Her Majesty, with marked
+success. As a high and eminent authority on the subject has admirably put
+it--
+
+    His was no merely idle, passing patronage or casual aid, but it was
+    rather a pursuit he delighted in, and one he followed out with equal
+    energy and advantage. The most practical man could not go that
+    pleasant round from the Flemish farm to the Norfolk, and so back again
+    by the Home and the Dairy, without learning something wherever he
+    went.
+
+We must deny ourselves the pleasure of aught but passing reference to the
+admirable manner in which he discharged his academic duties as Chancellor
+of the University of Cambridge, which post he held from 1845 till his
+death, and about which we say enough when we remind or inform the reader
+that it was such men as Professor Sedgwick, the Vice-chancellor, who spoke
+of the exercise of his duties in this capacity in terms of the highest
+honour and estimation. Similar were his services to such noble
+institutions as Eton and Wellington Colleges, in both of which he offered
+prizes expressly calculated to encourage the pursuit of those studies
+which had been, or were most likely to be, ignored in their several cases.
+Horticulture, art exhibitions, the National Portrait Gallery, the Society
+of Arts, societies for improving the general condition and the housing of
+the labouring classes, mechanics' institutions--each of these constitutes
+a theme most pregnant and suggestive in connection with the Prince's name
+and memory. But we can do no more than recite and dismiss the bald
+catalogue of topics. Reserving for the appropriate chronological occasion
+some brief remarks upon the character of the Prince as a private man, as
+contrasted with his aspects of character as a citizen and public
+benefactor, to which we have at present confined ourselves, we feel that
+we cannot better conclude than by condensing his opinions delivered in an
+address to the annual meeting of the Servants' Provident Benevolent
+Society, in 1849, in which the whole plan and doctrine by which he
+believed all really useful associated benevolence ought to be regulated
+was summed up. His view was that no such organisation was founded upon a
+right principle which did not require every man, by personal exertion, and
+by his own choice, to work out his own happiness. Benevolence he held to
+be not really such unless it stimulated providence, self-denial, and
+perseverance. He used special words of warning against those so frequent
+lotteries of uncertain and precarious advantages--"really a species of
+gambling"--expensive convivial meetings, balloting for prizes, and
+electioneering contests on a small scale. "Let them always bear in mind,"
+he proceeded to say, "that their savings are capital, that capital will
+only return a certain interest, and that any advantage offered beyond that
+interest has to be purchased at a commensurate risk of the capital
+itself."
+
+Such is a view, but all too summary and inadequate, of some of the
+obligations which the English, as his fellow-citizens, owed to that Prince
+whose life was so intertwined with and influential on that of their
+Sovereign.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII.
+
+FOREIGN TRAVEL AND HOME VISITS.
+
+    Visit to King Louis Philippe at Eu--A Loyal Corporation--Splendid
+    Reception of the Queen in France--Anecdote of the Queen's Regard for
+    Prince Albert--Visit of the Czar Nicholas--Home Life in
+    Scotland--Visit to Germany--Illuminations of the Rhine--A Rural Fete
+    at Coburg.
+
+
+In August, 1843, the Queen and Prince Albert made a yachting excursion
+round portions of the south coast and the Isle of Wight. Thence they
+steamed over to Treport, on the French coast, the nearest port to the
+Chateau d'Eu, a rural residence of Louis Philippe. On the arrival of the
+Queen and Prince from Windsor at Southampton, they were met at the end of
+the pier by the Duke of Wellington and other noble and official
+personages. It rained heavily, and as there was not sufficient covering
+for the stage intended to run on to the yacht _Victoria and Albert_, the
+members of the Corporation, like so many Raleighs, stripped off their red
+gowns in a moment, and the pathway was covered for Her Majesty's use, so
+that Queen Victoria, like Queen Elizabeth, walked dry-footed to her
+vessel. The undergraduates at Cambridge acted precisely similarly on the
+occasion of a visit in wet weather by the Queen and Prince to that
+university in this year.
+
+[Sidenote: VISIT TO FRANCE.]
+
+The subsequent visit to France was wholly unexpected in England; and it
+was even said, and with some show of truth, that the Ministers were
+unaware of the intention. Of course we cannot speak with any certainty,
+but it seems but too likely that Louis Philippe intrigued to secure the
+aid, or at least the condonation, of the Queen of England in those astute
+enterprises which his busy brain was even now concocting, with which the
+phrases "Pritchard and Tahiti," and the "Spanish Marriages" will ever
+remain associated, and which ultimately, and retributively, cost him his
+throne. Mr. Raikes, who, be it remembered, was the intimate and bosom
+friend of the Duke of Wellington, then a Minister of England, has at this
+date the following entry in his Journal, which was published in 1857, and
+is an acknowledged, and if not absolutely an indisputable, yet a most
+weighty authority:--
+
+    _Tuesday, 19th._--Much conversation after dinner about the Queen's
+    visit to Eu. I said, that the day before I left Paris, Kisseleff, the
+    Russian Minister, scouted the idea of this visit, and betted that it
+    would never take place. Lord Canning remarked, as a singular
+    coincidence, that Brunow, the Russian Minister in London, asserted
+    positively, on the very morning that the Queen embarked at
+    Southampton, that she had no intention of going to Eu. They both
+    spoke, I suppose, as they wished.
+
+This, it may be said, is mere club gossip. Not so what we are about to
+quote, and which was written under the Duke of Wellington's roof:--
+
+    _Saturday, 23rd._--I went down to Walmer Castle, and found the Duke
+    walking with Mr. Arbuthnot on the ramparts, or, as it is called, the
+    platform, which overlooks the sea.... After the company had departed
+    at ten o'clock, I sat up with the Duke and Arbuthnot till twelve
+    o'clock, talking on various topics.... I see that the Government was
+    evidently opposed to the Queen's visit to Eu. It was a wily intrigue,
+    managed by Louis Philippe, through the intervention of his daughter,
+    the Queen of the Belgians, during her frequent visits to Windsor with
+    King Leopold, and was hailed by him with extreme joy, as the first
+    admission of the King of the Barricades within the pale of legitimate
+    sovereigns. The Duke said, "I was never let into the secret, nor did I
+    believe the report then in circulation, till at last they sent to
+    consult my opinion as to forming a regency during the Queen's absence.
+    I immediately referred to precedents as the only proper guide. I told
+    them that George I., George II. (George III. never went abroad), and
+    George IV. had all been obliged to appoint councils of regency; that
+    Henry VIII., when he met Francis I. at Ardres, was then master of
+    Calais, as also when he met Charles V. at Gravelines; so that, in
+    these instances, Calais being a part of his dominions, he hardly did
+    more than pass his frontier--not much more than going from one county
+    to the next. Upon this I decided that the Queen could not quit this
+    country without an Act of Regency. But she consulted the crown
+    lawyers, who decided that it was not necessary, as courtiers would
+    do." I myself (resumes Raikes) did not believe in her going till two
+    days before she went. Peel persisted afterwards that he had told me of
+    it; but I knew I never heard it, and it was not a thing to have
+    escaped me if I had.
+
+As for the reception at the Chateau d'Eu itself, it was of the most
+splendid character. One state ceremonial, however, is so very like
+another, that after those, the descriptions of which we have already
+furnished, a recital of the gay doings at Eu would hardly be palatable.
+The purport of the whole may be summed up very briefly. The French monarch
+endeavoured to allure the Queen into compliance with his wishes, by every
+seduction which nature and art, and the most refined and gallant courtesy,
+could supply. Everything that wealth, luxury, and taste could furnish was
+to be found amid scenes of more than royal magnificence, o'ershadowed by
+elms that dated back to the times of Henri Quatre.
+
+But there was business to be done, and the Queen was fortunate in having
+with her such trusty counsellors as Lords Aberdeen and Liverpool. A
+compact about the Spanish marriages was then and there made between France
+and England; a compact for the terms of which we are dependent, not alone
+upon English state papers, but upon the unimpeachable testimony of MM.
+Guizot and Regnault. As the starting-point of the one court was that the
+Queen of Spain should marry a Prince of the House of Coburg, and of the
+other that she should marry a Prince of the reigning French house, of
+course no settlement could be come to except by an unequivocal compromise.
+Thus did Lord Aberdeen and M. Guizot arrange it:--The King of France
+renounced all pretensions, on the part of any of his sons, to the hand of
+the Queen of Spain. It was stipulated that the Queen should choose her
+husband from the princely descendants of Philip V.; this stipulation
+excluding the dreaded competition of a Coburg. As to the projected
+marriage of the Duc de Montpensier, the son of Louis Philippe, with the
+Infanta Donna Maria, sister of the Queen of Spain, Louis Philippe agreed
+that it should not take place "till the Queen was married and had had
+children." On these conditions, the Queen of England and her counsellors
+waived all objections to the marriage of the Duc de Montpensier. Louis
+Philippe kept his word by having his son married to the Infanta on the
+very same day, and at the same altar, as that on which her elder sister
+the Queen was married.
+
+In the summer of this year, the Princess Augusta of Cambridge, the Queen's
+first cousin, was married to the Grand Duke of Mecklenburg-Strelitz. The
+following extract from the diary of Mr. Raikes will be admitted to be far
+from the least amusing and characteristic anecdote of the Queen which we
+present in these pages:--
+
+    _Tuesday, 26th September._--This morning at breakfast, the Duke said
+    to me, "Did you hear what happened at the wedding?" [meaning that of
+    the Princess Augusta of Cambridge]. Replying in the negative, he
+    continued, "When we proceeded to the signatures, the King of Hanover
+    was very anxious to sign before Prince Albert, and when the Queen
+    approached the table, he placed himself by her side, watching his
+    opportunity. She knew very well what he was about, and just as the
+    Archbishop was giving her the pen, she suddenly dodged around the
+    table, placed herself next to the Prince, then quickly took the pen
+    from the Archbishop, signed and gave it to Prince Albert, who also
+    signed next, before it could be prevented. The Queen was also very
+    anxious to give the precedence at Court to King Leopold before the
+    King of Hanover, and she consulted me about it, and how it should be
+    arranged. I told Her Majesty that I supposed it should be settled as
+    we did at the congress of Vienna. "How was that," said she, "by first
+    arrival?" "No ma'am," said I, "alphabetically, and then, you know, B
+    comes before H." This pleased her very much, and it was done.
+
+[Sidenote: THE CZAR NICHOLAS.]
+
+In June, 1844, the Queen was visited by her handsome and colossal
+godfather, the Czar Nicholas of All the Russias. The Queen received him
+with great magnificence, and there was a splendid series of entertainments
+at Windsor. The Czar made himself immensely popular with the female sex,
+by his magnificent gifts of jewels to the ladies of the Court; with the
+sterner sex, by the gift of a cup of uncommon splendour, to be annually
+run for at Ascot. "Every one who approached him," says Sir Archibald
+Alison, "was struck by the manly dignity of his figure, his noble and
+serene countenance, and the polished courtesy of his manner, which threw a
+lustre even over the stately halls of Windsor."
+
+In September of the same year the Queen renewed her acquaintance with
+Scotland and the Scots; this time again enjoying the ducal hospitality of
+Blair Athole. This visit was entirely dissociated from all State
+paraphernalia. The Queen was up before the sun. The mists were hardly
+cleared away ere she and the Prince were to be seen walking in the
+grounds. They were generally accompanied by the Princess Royal, mounted on
+a Shetland pony. The Queen's piper played under her bed-room window at
+dawn, and every morning a bunch of heather, with some icy-cold water from
+the celebrated spring in Glen Tilt, was laid on her dressing-table. One
+morning a lady, plainly dressed, left the Castle; who, though observed by
+the Highland guard on duty, was allowed to pass unnoticed, until after she
+had proceeded a considerable distance. But somebody having discovered that
+it was the Queen, a party of Highlanders turned out as a royal body-guard.
+She, however, signified her wish to dispense with their services, and they
+all returned to their stations. The Queen, meanwhile, moved onward through
+the Castle grounds alone, until she reached the lodge, the temporary
+residence of Lord and Lady Glenlyon, where, upon calling, with the
+intention, it was understood, of making some arrangements as to a
+preconcerted excursion to the Falls of Bruar, she was informed that his
+lordship had not yet arisen. The surprise of the servant may be conceived
+when Her Majesty announced who was to be intimated as having called upon
+his lordship. On her return, having taken a different route, and finding
+herself bewildered by the various roads which intersect the grounds in
+every direction, she asked some reapers to direct her to the Castle by the
+nearest way. They, not being aware to whom they spoke, immediately did so,
+by directing her to go through one of the parks, and across a paling which
+lay before her, and which she at once passed, and reached the Castle, a
+good deal amused, doubtless, with her morning's excursion. In 1847 the
+Queen visited, for the first time, the Western Isles and Hebrides. In 1848
+she rented Balmoral, which she shortly afterwards purchased, and from the
+date of its acquisition it has been her place of regular resort for at
+least one period of every year.
+
+On the 9th of August, 1845, the Queen and Prince Albert embarked at
+Woolwich to visit the land of her maternity and his natal spot. In the
+Belgian and Prussian territories, and in the Duchy of Coburg itself, they
+were rapturously welcomed. At Bonn, they were serenaded by a monster
+orchestra, consisting of no fewer than sixty military bands. At the same
+city they assisted at the inauguration of the statue of Beethoven. The
+same evening they witnessed at Cologne an illumination and pyrotechnic
+display which turned the Rhine into a _feu-de-joie_. As darkness closed
+in, the dim and fetid city began to put forth buds of light; lines of
+twinkling brightness darted, like liquid gold and silver, from pile to
+pile, then along the famous bridge of boats, across the river, up the
+masts of the shipping, and all abroad on the opposite bank. Rockets now
+shot from all parts of the horizon. The royal party embarked in a steamer
+at St. Tremond, and glided down the river; as they passed, the banks
+blazed with fireworks and musketry. At their approach they glared with
+redoubled light; and, being suspended, let the vessel pass to Cologne,
+whose cathedral burst forth a building of light, every detail of the
+architecture being made out in delicately coloured lamps--pinkish, with an
+underglow of orange. A few days afterwards the Queen steamed up the Rhine.
+At Stoltzenfelz there was another magnificent illumination and display of
+fireworks. The whole river, both its banks, its crags, ravines, and ruins,
+were simultaneously lighted up; showers of rockets and other fireworks
+besprinkled the firmament, while repeated salvoes of artillery called the
+grandeur of resonant sound to the aid of visible beauty.
+
+[Sidenote: VISIT TO COBURG.]
+
+At Coburg the Queen, as might be supposed, was still more cordially
+welcomed than at any of her previous stopping places. She and the Prince
+stopped at the Castle of Rosenau, and they occupied the room in which he
+had been born. A magnificent stag-hunt was got up for their entertainment;
+but what pleased the Queen most was being present at a festival entitled
+"The Feast of Gregorius." This was a species of carnival, in which the
+burghers and rustics, their wives and children, disguised in masks,
+indulged in innocent and exuberant gaiety. The Queen and her relatives
+freely mixed with the revellers. She talked to the children, to their
+great astonishment, "in their own language." Tired of dancing and
+processions, and freed from all awe by the ease of their illustrious
+visitors, the children took to romps, "thread-my-needle," and other
+pastimes, and finally were well pelted by the royal circle with bon-bons,
+flowers, and cakes.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII.
+
+THE QUEEN IN IRELAND.
+
+    First Visit to Ireland--Rapturous Reception at Cork--Queenstown so
+    Denominated--Enthusiasm at Dublin--Its Graceful Recognition by the
+    Queen--Visit to the Dublin Exhibition--Encouragement of Native
+    Industry--Visit to the Lakes of Killarney--The Whirligig of Time.
+
+
+For twelve years after her accession to the throne, the Queen was a
+personal stranger to the shores of Erin. Amongst the numerous fruits of
+the tranquillity restored to Ireland, after the disturbances and sedition
+which had culminated in the "Young Ireland" rising of 1848, was a visit
+paid by the Queen to her subjects on the west of St. George's Channel in
+the autumn of 1849. Immediately after the prorogation of Parliament, the
+Queen and Prince Albert proceeded to Cowes, where a Royal squadron was
+ready to receive them. Under its escort, and being accompanied by their
+two eldest children, they steered for Cork. The Queen selected as the
+first spot of Irish ground on which to land, the port which, up to the
+date of her disembarkation, had been known as the Cove of Cork. She gave a
+command that, in commemoration of the circumstance, the Cove should
+thenceforth be designated Queenstown. Having re-embarked, the Royal party
+steamed up the beautiful bay to the city of Cork itself, where a
+magnificent reception awaited them. The squadron proceeded at a slow
+rate. In spite of its arrival at a much earlier date than had been
+anticipated, the news spread like wildfire, and the country people
+assembled in prodigious numbers on the shores of the Cove, which were
+crowded with multitudes of excited Celts, whose wild shouts, mingled with
+the firing of cannon and small arms, and the ringing of bells, made the
+whole scene animated beyond description. From Cork, the Queen proceeded to
+Dublin. There her reception was described by an eye-witness as "a sight
+never to be forgotten."
+
+[Sidenote: FIRST VISIT TO IRELAND.]
+
+The Queen, turning from side to side, bowed low repeatedly. Prince Albert
+shared in and acknowledged the plaudits of the people; while the Royal
+children were objects of universal attention and admiration. Her Majesty
+seemed to feel deeply the warmth of her reception. She paused at the end
+of the platform for a moment, and again making her acknowledgments, was
+hailed with a tremendous cheer as she entered the terminus of the short
+railway line which connects Kingston with Dublin. On her departure, a few
+days later, an incident still more gratifying to the Irish people
+occurred. As the Royal yacht approached the extremity of the pier near the
+lighthouse, where the people were most thickly congregated, and who were
+cheering enthusiastically, the Queen suddenly left the two
+Ladies-in-waiting with whom she was conversing, ran with agility along the
+deck, and climbed the paddle-box to join Prince Albert, who did not notice
+her till she was nearly at his side. Reaching out to him, and taking his
+arm, she waved her hand to the people on the piers. She appeared to give
+some order to the captain: the paddles immediately ceased to move, and
+the vessel merely floated on. The Royal Standard was lowered in courtesy
+to the thousands cheering on shore, and this stately obeisance was
+repeated five times.
+
+This gracious and well-timed visit to Ireland was a very significant proof
+of the Royal confidence in the unshaken allegiance of the bulk of the
+Irish people; and it likewise showed a just appreciation of the prudent
+energy and humane moderation with which her Ministers had so fortunately
+composed the recent unhappy tumults. Nearly thirty years had elapsed since
+a British sovereign had appeared in Ireland; and between the visit of
+George IV. and that of Queen Victoria, there was in common only the
+circumstance that both were royal visits. George, as King of Ireland, in
+1821, was not the king of a free nation; the victory of civil and
+religious liberty had yet to be achieved for and by the Irish; a minority
+engrossed the national Government and monopolised its emoluments of every
+degree; the very existence of the people as a people had not been
+recognised, and the King himself was peculiarly and bitterly identified
+with the faction which held the race and their creed in thraldom. Thus, in
+1821, the Crown of England possessed for Ireland little lustre or utility,
+nor did it evoke any well-grounded loyalty and devotion from its people.
+
+Queen Victoria and her visit, on the contrary, represented those popular
+principles and sympathies which are the brightest jewels of the British
+Crown, and are now set firmly in it for ever. Her visit, at once august
+and affectionate, was a visit to a nation which was not only loyal but
+free. "And joy came well in such, a needful time." The joy was exuberant
+and universal. As the loyalty was rendered to a young Queen, it partook of
+the romantic and strictly national nature of gallantry. To witness that
+joy must have been the fittest punishment for the disaffected.
+
+"We do not remember," says an authority not given to rhapsody or
+exaggeration, "in the chronicles of royal progresses, to have met with any
+description of a scene more splendid, more imposing, more joyous, or more
+memorable, than the entry of the Queen into the Irish capital." The houses
+were absolutely roofed and walled with spectators. They were piled throng
+above throng, till their occupants clustered like bees about the vanes and
+chimney tops. The noble streets of Dublin seemed to have been removed, and
+built anew of Her Majesty's lieges. The squares resembled the interiors of
+crowded amphitheatres. Facades of public buildings were formed for the day
+of radiant human faces. Invention exhausted itself in preparing the
+language of greeting, and the symbols of welcome. For miles the chariot of
+the gay and gratified Sovereign passed under parti-coloured (not
+_party_-coloured) streamers, waving banners, festal garlands, and
+triumphal arches. The latter seemed constructed of nothing else than solid
+flowers, as if the hands of Flora herself had reared them. At every
+appropriate point jocund music sent forth strains of congratulation; but
+banners, flowers, arches, and music were all excelled by the jubilant
+shouts which tore the empyrean, loud, clear, and resonant, not only above
+drum and trumpet, but above even the saluting thunders of the fleet.
+
+[Sidenote: VISIT TO AN IRISH NATIONAL SCHOOL.]
+
+Perhaps, apart from the mere loyal enthusiasm of the occasion, the most
+important and significant incident of the visit was the following. It did
+not fail to be remarked that the first institution which Her Majesty
+visited in the capital was the central establishment of the Irish National
+Schools--the first-fruits of Irish liberty, and the noblest possession of
+the Irish people. The Queen knew that in these excellent schools the youth
+of all persuasions were trained together, not in the love and pursuit of
+knowledge alone, but in the habit of tolerance and the spirit of charity.
+The Queen, by this visit, passed her personal approval and sanction upon a
+system which is equally the antithesis of sectarian discord and the
+promoter of religious independence. Here, also, she discovered (or already
+knew, as was much more likely) that there was imparted the most useful,
+solid, and practical instruction, one of a character most precisely
+adapted to the wants, pursuits, interests, and occupations of the classes
+in whose behalf it was devised. In her survey and inspection of the Normal
+Schools, the Queen was attended by the Protestant and the Romanist
+Archbishops, and the representatives of other Christian denominations,
+friendly to the great scheme, stood beside and around her. That quite as
+much importance and significance as we have accorded to it was assigned to
+this visit of the Queen to the Normal National Schools, sufficiently
+appears from these closing sentences of the Report of the Irish Education
+Commissioners for 1849:--
+
+    We cannot conclude our Report for 1849 without alluding with pride and
+    gratitude to the visit with which our Model Schools were honoured on
+    the 7th of August, by Her Majesty Queen Victoria, and by her Royal
+    Consort, Prince Albert, accompanied by your Excellency. We are
+    convinced that this visit, so promptly and cordially made, has left an
+    indelible impression upon the hearts of the poor of Ireland, for whose
+    benefit our system has been established; and that they will ever
+    regard the compliment as the most appropriate and decisive that could
+    have been paid by Her Majesty to themselves. All reflecting men,
+    whether friends or opponents of our institution, have not failed to
+    see the importance of the step. By the country at large it has been
+    hailed as an eminent proof of Her Majesty's wisdom and goodness, and
+    as peculiarly worthy of the daughter of that illustrious Prince who
+    was the ardent advocate of the education of the poor, when denounced
+    by many as a dangerous novelty; and of their united education on just
+    and comprehensive principles, when most men regarded it as
+    impracticable.
+
+[Sidenote: VISIT TO THE LAKES OF KILLARNEY.]
+
+Four years later, when the first International Exhibition was held at
+Dublin, the Queen renewed her acquaintance with her Irish subjects. Making
+a somewhat lengthened stay at the vice-regal residence, she charmed the
+people by the freedom with which she mingled amongst them, and by the
+special attention and the bounteous patronage which she bestowed upon the
+little-developed but beautiful specimens of their indigenous textile
+industries in the Exhibition building. A third and a much more prolonged
+visit was made in the autumn of 1861, the Queen having honoured Lord
+Castlerosse and Mr. Herbert of Muckross, two gentlemen whose seats and
+demesnes are situate on the shores of the beauteous Lakes of Killarney, by
+accepting their hospitable invitations. Over the lakes, their islets, and
+their surrounding mountains and mountain passes, the Queen roved as freely
+and unrestrainedly as was her wont in the retreats in which she had year
+after year sojourned, after the turmoil of the London season, in the
+Scottish Highlands. It was observed with pleasure that, amongst other
+indications of change which the whirligig of time had brought round, Mr.
+James O'Connell, the brother of the "Liberator," dined more than once with
+Her Majesty at the tables of her noble and gentle hosts; and the hounds
+that forced a stag to take to the Lake--one of the immemorial sports
+associated with Killarney--formed a portion of the pack which belonged to
+his two sons.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX.
+
+THE WORLD'S CONGRESS OF INDUSTRY.
+
+    Prince Albert the Inaugurator of International Exhibitions--Proposes,
+    Unsuccessfully, his Scheme to the Government--To the Society of Arts,
+    Successfully--First Steps towards Realisation--Objections to be
+    Met--Perseverance of the Prince--The Royal Commission--The Prince's
+    Speech at York--The Opening Ceremony--The Royal Procession.
+
+
+As early as 1848 Prince Albert submitted to the Government a proposal to
+establish an exhibition of works of industry in this country; but the
+members of the Government could not be induced to afford to it any of that
+encouragement which it was sought to obtain. Despairing of acquiring
+assistance in this quarter, but hopeful, courageous, and unbaffled, the
+Prince, who was President of the Society of Arts, in the following year
+betook himself to that more likely and congenial quarter. Not content,
+however, with following in the wake of previous Expositions which had been
+held in Paris and elsewhere, he suggested the happy idea of so extending
+its range as to include within it the works of industry and the art
+treasures of all lands. He convened on his own responsibility a meeting at
+Buckingham Palace, on the 30th of June, 1849, where he proposed that the
+Exhibition should be divided into four sections: the first being raw
+materials and produce illustrative of the natural productions in which
+human industry is employed; the second, machinery for agricultural,
+manufacturing, engineering, and other purposes, and mechanical inventions
+illustrative of the agents which human ingenuity brings to bear upon the
+products of nature; the third, manufactures illustrative of the results
+produced by the operation of human industry upon natural produce; the
+fourth, sculpture, models, and the plastic arts generally, illustrative of
+the skill displayed in such applications of human industry.
+
+When this proposal of a display so novel was first made, there existed no
+public enthusiasm to welcome the daring scheme, and all were in utter
+ignorance of those mechanical means of accomplishing it which to the
+present generation are so simple and obvious. It was met by countless
+cavils and objections without end. But the Prince had insight enough to
+discriminate between the real body of public opinion, lethargic and slow
+to move, yet ductile and malleable, and the artificial clamour of the
+marplots. Fortunately for the success of the great enterprise, the Prince
+possessed within himself the happiest combination of the highest station
+with those indomitable qualities of hopeful perseverance which were
+necessary to overcome the innumerable impediments which threatened more
+than once to mar the success of the great work. He succeeded in getting
+associated with him an active body of Commissioners, who, encouraged by
+the untiring industry which their illustrious President displayed,
+persevered in their work; and one by one the practical difficulties
+disappeared before the clear and vigorous intellect which the Prince
+brought to bear upon their discussions.
+
+[Sidenote: THE GREAT EXHIBITION.]
+
+But he remained, indeed, the _facile princeps_ in maturing, as he had been
+in designing, the scheme. This is no mere language of eulogy, for the
+records of the Commissioners of the Exhibition have placed in print
+undoubted proofs that equally the completion with the progress, and the
+progress quite as much as the origin, of the Exhibition of 1851, were
+mainly due to the large conception and wise foresight of the Prince
+Consort. The public at the time knew but little, and many of its
+constituent atoms know but little to this day, of the amount of anxious
+thought and labour which he devoted to the success of the great
+undertaking that made the year 1851 memorable as a new starting-point in
+the industrial and social history of the world. One important point, apart
+altogether from his personal merits, must never be lost sight of. His own
+high name and his close relation to the Sovereign, added a lustre to the
+Royal Commission which would otherwise have been totally lacking, and gave
+ground for that confidence to foreign powers which they displayed so
+signally and with so little stint.
+
+[Sidenote: PRINCE ALBERT AT YORK.]
+
+At a banquet held at York about six months before the Exhibition opened,
+the Prince in a long address, in which he replied to the toast of his
+health, indicated, though most modestly and unconsciously, at once the
+arduous nature of his preliminary labours and the zeal with which he
+pursued them. In the name of the Commissioners, who had been invited to
+the banquet _en masse_, he thanked his hosts for the proof thereby made
+plain of their earnest and combined zeal in the cause of the approaching
+Exhibition. He rejoiced that it was not a mere impulse of momentary
+enthusiasm which they evinced, but a spirit of steady perseverance and
+sustained effort, and he assured his auditors that the spirit of active
+preparation and hopeful faith was abroad in the country. Of this, he said,
+he was confident, on the ground of information which reached him from all
+quarters. And he added, and the event proved him to be right, his own
+personal conviction that the works in preparation would be such as to
+dispel any apprehension about the position which British industry would
+maintain. Of his brother Commissioners he spoke with loyal and chivalrous
+fervour. He thanked, in their name, the public for their uninterrupted
+confidence in those who were responsible for the management of the scheme;
+and stated that there had been no difference of opinion between the
+central and the local committees, which had not, upon personal
+consultation and open discussion vanished, and given way to agreement and
+identity of purpose. So much for hope: the test of fruition had yet to
+come.
+
+At length the great event to which the whole civilised world had been
+looking forward for eighteen months with mingled interest and
+curiosity--the opening of the great congress of industry and art--was
+accomplished with a pomp and solemnity of ceremonial suitable to the
+dignity of the occasion, and the important social interests which it
+involved. Spite of all predictions to the contrary--spite of the
+faint-hearted forebodings which the wild confusion of the interior of the
+building in the last days of April excused, if it did not justify--the
+building was ready and furnished with the world's wares at the appointed
+time. At two o'clock on the last day of April the building was cleared by
+police and guardsmen of all exhibitors and their assistants, and the
+preparations for the opening day, already partially made, were pursued
+with the utmost zeal and vigour.
+
+Never dawned a brighter morning than that of the May Day which succeeded.
+The sky was clear and blue, the air as cool, crisp, and genial as a poet
+or artist could wish, and the sun came forth in undimmed splendour.
+London, reinforced by a multitude of visitors, was early astir and afoot.
+At six the Park gates were opened, and through them at once commenced to
+pour carriages from all parts of the metropolis and its neighbourhood,
+filled with gaily attired courtiers, cits, and provincials. The line of
+route was kept by mounted soldiers and police; but their task was rendered
+almost perfunctory, so fully did all appear animated with the one desire
+to signalise this truly popular ceremonial with generous and kindly
+feeling, and a respect for the rights and duties of one another. The only
+houses from which a sight could be got of the royal procession were those
+at Grosvenor Gate and at Hyde Park Corner. These were crowded with
+well-dressed persons, of whom ladies formed the majority, up to the very
+roofs. The roofs of Apsley House and the park-keeper's lodge were
+similarly tenanted. The windows of Buckingham Palace, which had recently
+been new fronted, were filled with eager spectators, chiefly members of
+the Household, their relatives and friends. The centre balcony was
+occupied by the younger princes and princesses, attended by several
+ladies.
+
+Precisely at eleven the Life Guards commenced to widen the path for the
+procession. At half-past eleven, the band of the regiment playing "God
+save the Queen," the royal cortege set forth, amid the cheers of the vast
+assembled multitude. The procession was of anything but an ostentatious
+character. The eight carriages of which it was composed were drawn by but
+two horses each. There were no Gentlemen-Ushers, Grooms, or Yeomen of the
+Guard. Trumpeters there were, but their trumpets were silent. At a quarter
+to twelve the procession reached the northern entrance of the Palace, and
+the Queen alighted amid the strains of the National Anthem, a salvo of
+artillery, and the lusty cheers of enormous multitudes on both sides of
+the Serpentine.
+
+[Sidenote: OPENING OF THE EXHIBITION.]
+
+Meanwhile, from nine o'clock, the appointed hour of opening, the building
+had been rapidly filling, all the visitors being remarkably well dressed,
+and a large majority of them ladies. "The first _coup d'oeil_ of the
+building, on entering the nave, was grand and gorgeous in the extreme; the
+vast dimensions of the structure, the breadth of light, partially subdued
+and agreeably mellowed in the nave by the calico coverings placed over the
+roof, whilst the arched transept soared boldly into the clear arch of
+heaven, courting, admitting, and distributing the full effulgence of the
+noon-day sun; the bright and striking colours and forms of the several
+articles in rich manufactured goods, works in sculpture, and other objects
+displayed by the exhibitors, dissimilar and almost incongruous in their
+variety, were blent into an harmonious picture of immense grandeur by the
+attendant circumstances of space and light to which we have just alluded;
+and the busy hum and eager and excited movements of the assembled
+thousands infused the breath of life into a picture, which, at the period
+of the crowning incident of the day, became truly sublime."
+
+By eleven o'clock, after which hour none of the general public could be
+admitted, the Honourable Corps of Gentlemen-at-Arms, in their gay
+uniforms, had taken up their places in the rear of the dais set for the
+Queen. This dais was covered with a splendid carpet, which had been
+specially worked for the occasion by 150 ladies, and on this was placed a
+magnificent chair of state, covered with a cloth of crimson and gold. High
+over head was suspended an octagon canopy, trimmed with blue satin, and
+draperies of blue and white. The trumpeters and heralds were in readiness
+to proclaim the arrival of the Queen, and Sir George Smart stood, baton in
+hand, perched up in a small rostrum, "ready to beat time to 'God save the
+Queen' for the five hundredth time in his life." The Commissioners of the
+Exhibition and the foreign ambassadors stood in the entrance hall,
+prepared to pay their respects to Her Majesty on her arrival. The Queen
+entered, leaning on her husband's arm, and being also accompanied by the
+Princess Royal and Prince of Wales. The Queen wore a dress of pink satin,
+brocaded with gold; Prince Albert a Field-Marshal's uniform; the Prince of
+Wales was in a Highland dress, while the Princess was clad in white satin,
+with a wreath of flowers round her head. A tremendous burst of cheering,
+renewed and prolonged from all parts of the building, greeted the
+announcement of the arrival of the Queen.
+
+[Sidenote: THE ADDRESS OF THE PRINCE.]
+
+Her Majesty was conducted to her chair of state by the Commissioners,
+Cabinet, and Foreign Ministers. As they stood around her chair, in their
+bright Court dresses and brilliant uniforms, a choir of nearly a thousand
+voices sang "God save the Queen." At the conclusion of its last strain,
+Prince Albert descended from the dais, and taking his place with his
+brother Commissioners, read a long address to Her Majesty, in which he
+recited the history, plan, and intent of the magnificent and magnanimous
+scheme which was so largely the product of his own heart and brain. These
+and other less important particulars having been enumerated, the Prince
+thus concluded:--
+
+    It affords us much gratification that, notwithstanding the magnitude
+    of this undertaking, and the great distances from which many of the
+    articles now exhibited have had to be collected, the day on which your
+    Majesty has graciously pleased to be present at the inauguration of
+    the Exhibition is the same day that was originally named for its
+    opening, thus affording a proof of what may, under God's blessing, be
+    accomplished by good-will and cordial co-operation amongst nations,
+    aided by the means which modern science has placed at our command.
+
+    Having thus briefly laid before your Majesty the results of our
+    labours, it now only remains for us to convey to your Majesty our
+    dutiful and loyal acknowledgments of the support and encouragement
+    which we have derived throughout this extensive and laborious task
+    from the gracious favour and countenance of your Majesty. It is our
+    heartfelt prayer that this undertaking, which has for its end the
+    promotion of all branches of human industry, and the strengthening of
+    the bonds of peace and friendship among all the nations of the earth,
+    may, by the blessing of Divine Providence, conduce to the welfare of
+    your Majesty's people, and be long remembered among the brightest
+    circumstances of your Majesty's peaceful and happy reign.
+
+The Queen read a short reply, the tenor of which was warmly to re-echo the
+hopes and sentiments contained in the address of the Prince. The
+Archbishop of Canterbury then offered up a consecratory prayer, which was
+followed by the performance of the "Hallelujah Chorus," under the
+direction of Sir Henry Bishop. A very long procession, in which the Queen
+went hand in hand with her son, and Prince Albert with his daughter, was
+then marshalled, and having marched round the interior of the building, it
+was declared formally opened.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XX.
+
+THE WAR CLOUD.
+
+    Bright Hopes of Peace Dispelled--An Era of War all over the World--The
+    Russian War--The Queen's Visits to the Wounded Soldiers--Presentation
+    of the War Medals--Crimean Heroes--The Volunteer Movement.
+
+
+Fair and peaceful to all seeming were the prospects of humanity and the
+world when the doors of the Hyde Park Exhibition were closed for the last
+time, and while its materials were being removed to be erected in more
+than their pristine beauty on the summit of one of the finest heights
+which environ the sloping basin on which the British metropolis is built.
+But a cloud, it might be no bigger than a man's hand, but pregnant with
+ill, was on the horizon. The Exhibition closed a long era of peace in
+Europe and the world, an era which had been marred, so far as we were
+concerned, only by wars in our most distant Oriental dependencies; and, so
+far as the Continent was concerned, only by the aggressions of the
+potentates who constituted the Holy Alliance, by the revolutionary
+movements of 1848, and their sanguinary repression in the year following.
+Against the hopes of all, and the belief of most, good men and women, the
+Exhibition inaugurated one of the most martial terms of time which have
+formed a part of purely modern history. A year had hardly gone by ere
+Napoleon effected his _coup d'etat_, that fertile source of future
+evils--evils which are by no means yet exhausted. Then came the Russian
+War, which cost us in England a hundred thousand lives and at least a
+hundred millions of pounds. We had hardly celebrated, and rejoiced over,
+and illuminated our dwellings and public buildings in celebration of, the
+Peace of Paris, ere in India we had to put forth the utmost might of our
+imperial power to vindicate our "Raj" over Moslem and Hindoo, and to
+avenge the foul deeds done at Cawnpore. When Prince Albert was, in the
+mystery of providential rule, stricken down in his prime, Italy and
+Austria were just beginning to recover from the effects of the contests
+waged between trained troops at the Voltorno and by the Garibaldian
+guerillas in the Valteline. The first message which was conveyed by the
+new-laid Atlantic cable was a message of good-will from the grand-daughter
+of George III. to him who sat in the seat of the rebel Washington. The
+first experimental cable had hardly been destroyed by the potency of old
+ocean, churlish and jealous of the invasion of his domain, ere that great
+contest broke out across the Atlantic, which brought about the abolition
+of slavery throughout the United States. Hardly had our young Prince
+brought home his bonny bride ere the subjects who owed her father
+allegiance were called upon to hold their own against the mighty force
+wielded by a power, of which the queenly diadem must ere long be worn by
+England's dear and best-beloved daughter. The Danish War was hardly
+concluded ere the aggressor, returning victorious from his northern
+confines, turned his face to the south, and inflicted a catastrophe quite
+as telling and decisive upon that ancient dynasty, which has been more
+frequently allied with England in the great martial embroglios of the
+past than any other power of Europe.
+
+[Sidenote: AN ERA OF WAR.]
+
+We have said that Napoleon's _coup d'etat_ of December, 1852, sounded the
+tocsin of that period of war which has lasted without sensible
+intermission from then until now. With that _coup d'etat_ Victoria found
+herself by an accident somewhat closely allied. Some time after the close
+of the parliamentary session of 1851, all England was startled by the
+sudden announcement of the resignation by Lord Palmerston of the seals of
+the Foreign Office, which he held in the first Administration of Lord John
+Russell. On the meeting of Parliament in 1852, questions were at once
+addressed to the Treasury Benches in both Houses soliciting explanations
+of the circumstances. In the Lower House the querist was Sir Benjamin
+Hawes. Lord John Russell declared his perfect readiness to answer the
+question which had been put to him by Sir Benjamin Hawes, though he said
+he could not do so without entering into some details. These "details"
+were in the main as follows:--He commenced with a full and frank
+acknowledgment of the energy, the ability, and the extensive knowledge of
+the interests of England in all parts of the world which preeminently
+distinguished Lord Palmerston, and said that he the more regretted, on
+that account, that circumstances had occurred which prevented his acting
+any longer with him as a colleague. He laid down at starting what he
+conceived to be the correct doctrine as to the position which a Secretary
+of State holds as regards the Crown in the administration of foreign
+affairs. He held that when the Crown, in consequence of a vote of the
+House of Commons, places its constitutional confidence in a minister,
+that minister is, on the other hand, bound to afford the Crown its full
+liberty--a liberty which the Crown must possess--of saying that the
+minister no longer possesses its confidence. This was the general
+doctrine; but it so happened that with regard to Lord Palmerston
+individually, the precise terms were laid down, in 1850, in a
+communication on the part of Her Majesty with respect to the transaction
+of business between the Crown and the Foreign Secretary. Lord John said he
+had been the organ of that communication, and therefore assumed its
+responsibility. Its chief passage thus ran:--
+
+    The Queen requires, first, that Lord Palmerston will distinctly state
+    what he proposes in a given case, in order that the Queen may know as
+    distinctly to what she is giving her Royal sanction. Secondly, having
+    once given her sanction to a measure, that it be not arbitrarily
+    altered or modified by the Minister. Such an act she must consider as
+    failing in sincerity towards the Crown, and justly to be visited by
+    the exercise of her constitutional right of dismissing that Minister.
+    She expects to be kept informed of what passes between him and the
+    Foreign Ministers, before important decisions are taken based upon
+    that intercourse; to receive the foreign despatches in good time, and
+    to have the drafts for her approval sent to her in sufficient time to
+    make herself acquainted with their contents before they must be sent
+    off. The Queen thinks it best that Lord John Russell should show this
+    letter to Lord Palmerston.
+
+[Sidenote: DISMISSAL OF LORD PALMERSTON.]
+
+Lord John went on to say that, in his view, Lord Palmerston had violated
+this explicit understanding, at least in two instances--one of a
+comparatively trifling, but the other of a most important character--since
+the conclusion of the session of the year previous (1851). The former had
+reference to some incautious remarks which were said to have fallen from
+the lips of the Foreign Secretary on the occasion of receiving a
+deputation of sympathisers with Hungary. The other related to Napoleon's
+_coup d'etat_ of the 2nd of December previous. The instructions given to
+our Ambassador at Paris by the Queen's Government were to abstain from all
+interference with the internal affairs of France. Lord John had been
+informed of an alleged conversation between Lord Palmerston and the French
+Minister in London, the tenor of which was repugnant to those
+instructions. He had therefore at once written to him, but his
+communication had been treated with disdainful silence. Meanwhile Lord
+Palmerston, without the knowledge of his colleagues, wrote a despatch to
+Lord Normanby, our Minister at Paris, in which, however, he evaded the
+question whether he approved the act of the President. He considered
+altogether that Lord Palmerston had put himself in the place and assumed
+the prerogative of the Crown; that he had "passed by" the Crown, while he
+gave the moral approbation of England to the acts of Louis Napoleon, in
+direct opposition to the policy which the Government had hitherto pursued.
+Under these circumstances, he had no alternative but to declare that,
+while he was Prime Minister, Lord Palmerston could not hold the seals of
+office; for he had "forgotten and neglected what was due to the Crown and
+his colleagues."
+
+[Sidenote: THE WAR IN THE CRIMEA.]
+
+On the 27th of March, 1854, the following message from the Crown was read
+to the Peers by the Lord Chancellor. It explains itself. Nor is it
+necessary for us to re-write here a single line of one of the brightest
+and freshest pages of the recent history of England. We had long been
+"drifting into war," to use Lord Clarendon's memorable phrase, and at
+last the die was irrevocably, though reluctantly, cast.
+
+    VICTORIA R.
+
+    Her Majesty thinks it proper to acquaint the House that the
+    negotiations in which Her Majesty, in concert with her allies, has for
+    some time past been engaged with His Majesty the Emperor of All the
+    Russias, have terminated, and that Her Majesty feels bound to afford
+    active assistance to her ally the Sultan against unprovoked
+    aggression.
+
+    Her Majesty has given directions for laying before the House copies of
+    such papers, in addition to those already communicated to Parliament,
+    as will afford the fullest information with regard to the subject of
+    these negotiations. It is a consolation to reflect that no endeavours
+    have been wanting on her part to preserve to her subjects the
+    blessings of peace.
+
+    Her Majesty's just expectations have been disappointed, and Her
+    Majesty relies with confidence on the zeal and devotion of the House
+    of Lords, and the exertions of her brave and loyal subjects to support
+    her in her determination to employ the power and resources of the
+    nation for protecting the dominions of the Sultan against the
+    encroachments of Russia.
+
+Alma, Balaklava, and Inkerman had been fought and won, and the horrid
+winter in the trenches had not yet passed away. These days and nights of
+constant fighting had left us many fell remembrances of their grievous
+coming and going. The Eastern hospitals, at Scutari and within the lines
+of our camp, were choke-full of the wounded. Some few who could bear the
+pain of transit were brought home, and no one in England was more
+solicitous of their welfare and wise and kindly tending than England's
+Queen. Her visits to the hospitals were as welcome as they were frequent.
+
+On the 8th of March, 1855, the Queen, accompanied by Prince Albert, and by
+the Duke of Cambridge, the Prince of Wales, and Prince Alfred, visited the
+military hospitals at Fort Pitt and Brompton, Chatham. Fort Pitt was then
+the only general military hospital in England. As this hospital and that
+of Brompton contained together only 361 patients, it could not be
+considered that the royal visit was elicited by the peculiar calamities of
+the place. But the immense extent of the hospitals in the East, and the
+sufferings of the poor wounded soldiers lying within these vast
+lazar-houses, had raised in the breast of all England a feeling of pity
+and horror. In this feeling the Queen most deeply participated. While her
+visit to the only hospital in this country in which the sufferers by the
+war were received, was a gratification to her own kindly sympathies, and
+most cheering and solacing to the inmates, it could not fail to convey to
+the thousands of sufferers in the East, and to the kinsmen and kinswomen
+whose hearts bled for them at home, that no heart was fuller of pity than
+that of her under whose flag they had fought and fallen.
+
+The whole of the wounded who were in a condition to leave their beds were
+drawn up in chairs on the lawn, each having written upon it a card
+containing the name and services of the occupant, the nature of his
+wounds, and where they were received. The Queen passed along the line,
+saying a few kind words to those sufferers who particularly attracted her
+notice, or to those whose services were specially commended. She visited
+every ward, except that containing fever cases. A few days after, the
+Queen reviewed some cavalry and artillery at Woolwich. After the review,
+she visited the hospital, and saw the wounded artillery-men who had
+returned from the Crimea. Nor were these isolated exhibitions of sentiment
+or emotion. Upon every occasion during the continuance of the war, the
+Queen showed the most heartfelt sympathy with her brave soldiers; visited
+their hospitals and transport ships; received the wounded at her palace,
+and suggested and liberally assisted in the establishment of permanent
+means of relief for them and their families. A beautiful letter of the
+Queen, which was accidentally made public about this time, showed that in
+the privacy of domestic life Her Majesty never forgot these sufferers.
+Indeed, she complained that she was not kept sufficiently informed of the
+needs of those who had returned wounded to their country.
+
+[Sidenote: DISTRIBUTION OF WAR MEDALS.]
+
+It was equally the Queen's duty and pleasure to reward conspicuous merit,
+as it was to do all that lay within the limits of her human and regal
+power to soothe the pangs of woe. One scene in which she discharged this
+high queenly function will never be forgotten by those who were privileged
+to witness it. The Queen determined to present with her own hand, to the
+officers of the Crimean army, and to a portion of the non-commissioned
+officers and privates, who had returned to their country disabled by their
+wounds, the medals which they had so dearly won. This act of grace and
+kindness deeply touched a sentiment that rested deep in the bosom of the
+nation, that had, indeed, there rested ever since--nay, long
+before--Elizabeth thrilled the heroic hearts of her people at Tilbury by
+saying, "I myself will be your general and judge, and the rewarder of
+every one of your victories in the field."
+
+The presentation took place on the 18th of May, 1855. A royal dais was
+erected in the centre of the parade of the Horse Guards, and the public
+offices which surround it were filled up with galleries for the royal
+family and nobility. Within an area enclosed by barriers, were the
+intended recipients of the decorations. Without was a dense mass of
+spectators. When the Queen had reached the ground, the Guards, who had
+hitherto been in line, were formed four deep, and through the intervals
+thus opened the Crimean heroes passed, and in a few moments the Queen
+stood face to face with them. Each then passed singly, receiving his medal
+at the hands of Her Majesty, who presented them with a grace and kindness
+which brought tears to many an eye long unused to their effusion. The
+first to receive his medal was the Duke of Cambridge, who was
+enthusiastically received. Then followed other General officers, then the
+staff, and then in order, without distinction of regimental rank, came
+cavalry, artillery, engineers, and the line.
+
+The sight was one of the most thrilling ever seen in our metropolis, or in
+our times. The gaunt and pallid forms, scarred features, and maimed and
+mutilated limbs, brought home to the heart of the least sympathetic the
+ravages of war, and the cost and guerdon of bravery. Many of those who
+hobbled upon crutches, or walked painfully with the assistance of a stick,
+wore upon their arms the emblems of mourning for some brother or near
+relative, now reposing by the waters of the Euxine or the Bosphorus. To
+each one of the wounded, whether officer or private, the Queen said some
+kind word or asked some kindly question of him. Many of the poor fellows
+were quite overcome by the tenderness of her compassion. Those officers
+whose wounds rendered them unable to walk, were wheeled past in Bath
+chairs. Sir Thomas Troubridge, who lost both feet at Inkerman, and who
+has since died, was the first of these. The Queen, leaning over his chair,
+handed him his medal with the most gracious gesture, and conferred upon
+him the post of aide-de-camp to herself. Captains Sayer and Currie, who
+were also wheeled past, received similar sympathy.
+
+After the soldiers, came 450 sailors and marines, under Admiral Dundas,
+who was the first to be decorated. The ceremony over, the non-commissioned
+officers and men of all services dined in the riding-school, where they
+were visited by the Queen, her husband, and their children.
+
+[Sidenote: THE VOLUNTEER MOVEMENT.]
+
+Closely and intimately allied with the intense warlike feeling which
+prevailed throughout the period which we have been traversing, was the
+rise, or rather the revival from our grandfathers' times, of the Volunteer
+movement, in the winter of 1858-9. This very notable phenomenon of modern
+days was entirely of spontaneous origin and popular outgrowth. At first
+the authorities looked but coldly upon it--wisely so, we think--until it
+evinced inherent elements of vitality and reality of purpose, and until it
+appeared that it was something more than a mere passing impulse. It was
+not until the 15th of May, 1859, that a circular from the Secretary for
+War gave to the movement official sanction, in the form of an
+authoritative permission by the Queen for the formation of volunteer
+corps. Ere a twelvemonth had elapsed, 70,000 men had enrolled themselves
+in England and Scotland; and before the end of the summer of 1860, that
+number had swollen into 170,000. In many other and more emphatic modes the
+Queen graciously accorded her own personal sanction and her warm and
+approving recognition to the movement. At a special levee, held in March,
+1859, all volunteer officers had the opportunity of being presented. At
+the first meeting at Wimbledon of the National Rifle Association, in July,
+1860, Her Majesty founded an annual prize, in value L250. At the same
+meeting she fired the first shot, discharging a rifle, which had been
+carefully adjusted to a target 400 yards distant. The cheers of the
+assembled thousands welcomed the impact of the bullet within a quarter of
+an inch of the bull's eye, and one of many Swiss gentlemen, who were
+present as competitors, felicitously remarked that Queen Victoria was now
+_la premiere carabiniere de l'Angleterre_.
+
+[Sidenote: THE HYDE PARK REVIEW.]
+
+The 23rd of June in this year was a still greater day for the volunteer
+army, and for the country, for it proved how earnestly the riflemen had
+devoted themselves to training and to discipline. Her Majesty having
+expressed her desire to review the young force on that day, arrangements
+were made by the War Office, whereby every corps that had attained a
+certain excellence might be represented by its efficient members. The
+numbers and strength of the corps that presented themselves for inspection
+caused great surprise. Not only London and Westminster, and the densely
+populated metropolitan counties, sent ample contingents, but the energies
+of the railway companies were taxed to the utmost to bring up bodies of
+men from the west of England, the Midlands, Lancashire, Yorkshire, and
+East Anglia--even from distant Northumbria. The authorities ultimately
+found that they would have to make arrangements for placing 20,000 men in
+review order. The review became a national spectacle, a general holiday
+was arranged, and an immense assemblage, provincial as well as
+metropolitan, was assembled in Hyde Park. The Queen's stand was placed in
+the centre of a long line of galleries erected for the accommodation of
+about 17,000 privileged spectators, its situation being indicated by the
+Royal Standard planted before it. At different hours of the morning, the
+provincial corps, some of which must have travelled all night, were landed
+at the railway termini--the Durham Artillery, which had travelled
+farthest, being the first to reach King's Cross. The river steam-boats
+landed their freights at convenient piers: the suburban bodies mustered at
+their appointed stations. The whole operation of marching the respective
+battalions and brigades, amalgamated as agreed on, was performed with
+unerring precision and perfect ease, thanks to the intelligent zeal of the
+men and the clear heads of their officers. By two o'clock, 21,000, formed
+in one long line, extended completely across the park. The space of time
+which intervened between the successive arrivals of the corps and the
+commencement of the review, offered one of the most picturesque spectacles
+witnessed in our days.
+
+Exactly at four o'clock the Queen arrived on the ground in an open
+carriage. Accompanying her were the King of the Belgians, the Princess
+Alice, and Prince Arthur. The Prince Consort and the Prince of Wales were
+on horseback. The Queen was attended by a magnificent following of general
+officers, aides-de-camp, staff officers, foreign military men of
+distinction, and the Lords-Lieutenant of the counties which furnished
+contingents to the force on the ground. There were also in attendance on
+the Sovereign the Duke of Cambridge and Mr. Sidney Herbert, the official
+heads of the army. Remarkable amongst the group was Field-Marshal Lord
+Combermere, who had counted no fewer than seventy years of military duty.
+As the cortege swept on to the ground the volunteers stood to arms, their
+bands playing the National Anthem. The scene now presented was in truth a
+magnificent one. On one side, from north to south, stood the thick lines
+of the volunteers, their somewhat sombre ranks varied by masses of dark
+uniforms, with here and there a mass of scarlet, the whole thrown into
+relief by the background of the trees of Kensington Gardens. From west to
+east, dense lines of people extended, many being raised head over head by
+the most precarious and illusory elevations. From north to south, at the
+eastern end of the park, and facing the line of volunteers, a glittering
+line of military uniforms of officers and the gay dresses of ladies who
+accompanied them gave a varied and rich fringe to the human masses of the
+_elite_ of the land who occupied the galleries above them. The green space
+so enclosed was dotted and animated by the bright scarlet, glittering
+cuirasses, snowy plumes, and jet-black steeds of the Life Guardsmen, who
+kept the ground.
+
+The Queen, followed by the whole of her brilliant Court, drove to the
+extreme left of the volunteer line, and thence slowly passed along the
+whole front to where the extreme right came close up to the lofty houses
+at Albert Gate. Then turning, she drew up on the open ground, the Royal
+Standard proudly waving above her. The bands of the Household Brigade
+being placed opposite her, the volunteers now began to defile past,
+between Her Majesty and the bands. The march was commenced by the mounted
+corps, few in number, but admirably equipped and with remarkably fine
+horses. The infantry were headed by the Artillery Company, to whom, as
+the oldest volunteer body existing, not only in England but in Europe, the
+priority has always been accorded. For an hour and a half corps after
+corps marched past, until the long succession was closed by a regiment
+from Cheshire. When the whole had passed, and all had returned to their
+original positions, the whole line advanced in columns of battalions, and,
+by signal, cheered Her Majesty with vociferous earnestness. After
+expressing her high satisfaction with what she had seen, the Queen left
+the ground about six o'clock. Before eight o'clock all the volunteers had
+been marched out of the park, and there remained within its gates only
+meagre remnants of the enormous crowd of spectators.
+
+[Sidenote: THE REVIEW AT EDINBURGH.]
+
+The opinions of competent authorities on the creditable manner in which
+this experimental review passed off were of the highest character. The
+Commander-in-Chief issued a general order, by command of the Queen, in
+which His Royal Highness spoke in the highest terms of the efficiency
+displayed by the various corps, and of Her Majesty's appreciation of the
+loyalty and devotion exhibited by the volunteer movement. Later in the
+season the Queen, when on her customary autumnal route to Balmoral,
+reviewed in the Queen's Park, at Edinburgh, the volunteers of her northern
+kingdom, to the number of 12,000.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXI.
+
+THE QUEEN IN HER HIGHLAND HOME.
+
+    The Queen as an Author--"The Early Years of the Prince
+    Consort"--"Leaves from the Journal of our Life in the Highlands"--Love
+    for Children of all Ranks--Mountain Ascents on Pony-back--In Fingal's
+    Cave--"The Queen's Luck"--Salmon-spearing, and a Catastrophe attending
+    it--Erection of a Memorial Cairn--Freedom of Intercourse with Humble
+    Highlanders--Visits to Cottagers--"Mrs. Albert"--Travelling
+    Incognito--Highland Dinners--"A Wedding-Party frae Aberdeen"--A
+    Disguise Detected.
+
+
+Early in January of the year 1868, Queen Victoria added her name to the
+distinguished roll of Royal authors. In the year preceding, there had been
+published a work entitled, "The Early Years of the Prince Consort," in
+which the life of her revered and lamented husband is traced from its
+beginning, down to the first period of their common wedded life. On the
+title-page of this work appears the name, as author, of General the
+Honourable Charles Grey, a gentleman who accompanied the Prince in a tour
+to Italy before his marriage, and who has ever since remained attached, in
+high capacities, to the Royal Household. This book, to which we have been
+indebted for important materials reproduced by us at certain of the
+earlier stages of our narrative, was published with the sanction of Her
+Majesty, and its compiler received from his Royal Mistress most, if not
+all, of the materials which he very tastefully combined. But the Queen
+did not appear in it as author _in propria persona_, save in the instance
+of certain occasional notes and addenda to which her imprint is attached.
+The work published in 1868, on the other hand, "Leaves from the Journal of
+Our Life in the Highlands," is entirely, save a brief editorial
+introduction, from the Queen's pen. It is precisely, as its name imports,
+a series of extracts from a journal kept from day to day, and extended
+from Her Majesty's earliest married days far into those of her widowhood.
+Special passages are, in addition, given from similar diaries, which
+recorded yacht trips to the beautiful estuary of the Tamar, to the Duchy
+of Cornwall, and to the Channel Islands. There is also furnished a very
+sparkling and vivacious record of the Queen's first visit to Ireland, in
+1849, which will be found duly recorded by us in a previous chapter.
+
+Nothing charms more in these pages than the love displayed for all young
+people--for the writer's own sons and daughters, who are described by
+their home pet names; "Vicky," and "Bertie," standing, for example, for
+Victoria and Albert--for the infant child of a ducal entertainer, depicted
+as "a dear, white, fat, fair little fellow," and "such a merry,
+independent little child"--or for the children of humble cottagers at
+Balmoral, for "Mary Symons and Lizzie Stuart dancing so nicely; the latter
+with her hair all hanging down." When the Queen and Prince and the
+children land at Dundee, what charms the fond young mother most is, that
+"Vicky" behaves like a grown-up person, and is "not put out, nor
+frightened, nor nervous." And when a little grandchild of Lord Camperdown
+presented the youthful Princess Royal with a nosegay, the reflection that
+rose to the mother's mind was, that she could hardly believe that she was
+travelling as a wife and a mother; for it seemed but as yesterday that
+she, as a child, in the tours taken with _her_ mother through England,
+used to receive similar childish tokens. She was at once put in mind of
+the time when _she_ had been "the little Princess."
+
+[Sidenote: HAPPY DAYS IN THE HIGHLANDS.]
+
+Accounts of rides on shaggy Highland ponies to the tops of mountains, and
+more lengthened _incognito_ excursions in whatever vehicles could be
+procured at third-rate country inns, are thickly scattered over the pages
+of the "Journal."
+
+The Western Islands, as well as the Highlands, were at least on one
+occasion visited. Anchoring close by wondrous Staffa, the Queen
+disembarked, and was rowed in a barge into Fingal's Cave. This was the
+first time that the British standard, with a Queen of Great Britain and
+her husband and children, had ever entered the portals of this wondrous
+freak of nature, and the Gaelic oarsmen gave three cheers, the echoes of
+which from the inmost recesses of the cave were most impressive.
+
+On another mountain ramble, the Queen seated herself calmly, the youthful
+Prince of Wales lying among the heather by her side, while Prince Albert
+went to stalk a deer. He brought down a "royal," that is, a stag which has
+over a certain number of "tines" to his horns; on which the somewhat
+superstitious Highland keeper at once said that "it was Her Majesty's
+coming out that had brought the good luck." The Highlanders all believed
+that the Queen had "a lucky foot."
+
+[Sidenote: SALMON-SPEARING IN SCOTLAND.]
+
+Amongst other Highland sports which curiosity and great love of adventure
+led her to witness, was salmon spearing, or "leistering." While the
+keepers were beating the waters, the Highland gentlemen wading in the
+stream, and Prince Albert watching, spear in hand, on a boulder, the Queen
+watched from the brink this, the most exciting of all river sports, save,
+perhaps, otter hunting. Suddenly she was alarmed, and with most abundant
+cause. Two of the men imprudently went into a very deep pool. One of them
+could not swim, and he sank to the bottom. There was a cry for help, and a
+general rush by the Prince and others to the spot. The Queen was much
+frightened, and grasped the arm of the minister in attendance, Lord
+Carlisle, in great agony. But Dr. Robertson, the Queen's "factor," or
+agent over the Balmoral estate, swam in and got the too venturesome Gael
+out safely. The Queen, after this "horrid moment," had the satisfaction of
+seeing eight salmon speared or netted; and was further amused by a curious
+piece of Highland courtesy--her own "men" carrying all the "men" of
+Colonel Forbes, a neighbour, dry shod on their backs through the water.
+They had come to see the sport, and the Queen's gillies at once insisted
+on their conveying them to the most favourable side of the stream.
+
+A great day was that on which a cairn was erected on one of the heights
+overlooking Balmoral to celebrate the building of the new castle, which
+the Queen raised in lieu of the mansion which had stood on the estate when
+she was its tenant, and ere by its purchase she entered into proprietary
+possession. The morning was a fine one, and at eleven o'clock the Royal
+party started for the ascent of Craig Cowan, where already nearly all the
+dependants were assembled. The Royal children, and all the ladies and
+gentlemen, accompanied the Queen and Prince. All the children of the
+Queen's neighbouring tenants, and of her servants, were already on the
+top. The Queen laid the first stone, and the Prince the second, and then
+their children according to their ages. Then all the ladies and gentlemen
+of the Court placed a stone each. The pipers played the while, and whisky
+was served out to every one. It took an hour to build the cairn, and
+dancing and merry revels went on without intermission until its
+completion; the very oldest of the women danced, and the youngsters were
+wild with glee. An old favourite dog sat reflectively contemplating a
+scene to which his veteran gravity prevented his indulging in any
+responsive and sympathetic gambols. At last when the cairn, having
+attained to the respectable height of some eight feet, was pronounced all
+but complete, the Prince climbed to its summit and placed the last stone,
+and three hearty cheers announced to the dwellers below the completion of
+the enterprise and edifice. The Queen concludes her chronicle of its
+erection in these words:--"It was a gay, pretty, and touching sight, and I
+felt almost inclined to cry. The view was so beautiful over the dear
+hills, the day so fine, the whole so _gemuethlich_. May God bless this
+place, and allow us yet to see it and enjoy it many a long year!"
+
+The Queen and her family have always made it a practice to enter into the
+freest and most unrestrained conversation with the dignified, independent,
+courteous, and truly well-bred Highlanders. As she rode along a hill-side
+one day, "Alice and Bertie" accompanying her on foot, Prince Albert was
+conversing very gaily with one of the gillies, upon which the one who led
+the Queen's pony observed, "It's very pleasant to walk with a person who
+is always content." And when the Queen, following up her attendant's
+remark, said that he was never cross after bad sport, the gillie rejoined,
+"Every one on the estate says there never was so kind a master; our only
+wish is to give satisfaction." The Queen replied that that wish they
+certainly succeeded in fulfilling. And at a future date the Queen thus
+annotated that passage in her journal from which we have been
+borrowing:--"We were always in the habit of conversing with the
+Highlanders, with whom we came so much in contact in the Highlands. The
+Prince highly appreciated the good breeding, simplicity, and intelligence
+which makes it so pleasant, and even instructive, to talk to them."
+
+[Sidenote: THE QUEEN AND SCOTTISH COTTAGERS.]
+
+The Queen takes especial pleasure in visiting the old women's cottages, by
+some of whom, we have been told, she is not unfrequently addressed--or at
+least was so, when she was yet new to the north and the northerners new to
+her--as "Mrs. Albert." One old dame of eighty-six, erect and dignified as
+she sat at her spinning-wheel, received personally from Her Majesty the
+gift of a warm flannel petticoat. This was her pious and eloquent form of
+thanks: "May the Lord ever attend you and yours, here and hereafter, and
+may the Lord be a guide to ye, and keep ye from all harm!" Another aged
+pensioner, who was quite friendly, and shook hands with all her party of
+visitors, chose this form of benediction: "May the Lord attend you with
+mirth and with joy; may He ever be with you in this world, and when ye
+leave it!"
+
+[Sidenote: THE QUEEN IN DISGUISE.]
+
+The Queen's mode of travelling as an _incognita_ has never gone beyond a
+journey of three or four days' duration to some Highland district, in
+which the very amplitude of her retinue, even when abridged of its usual
+proportions, prevented her passing otherwise than as a person of
+distinction, but in which it was possible to keep her _queenly_ rank
+undiscovered. Sometimes the mask was successfully worn to the end of the
+trip, to the great enjoyment of the Queen, her "gentle" attendants, and
+her servants. On one or two occasions, recognitions, unfortunate for the
+success of the very innocent plot, were made by persons to whom the
+Queen's face was familiar. On one of these trips, two shabby vehicles
+contained the whole party, which consisted of the Royal pair, Sir George
+Grey, Lady Churchill, and a small complement of servants. It had been
+arranged that the tourists should pass as Lord and Lady Churchill (the
+Queen and Prince assuming these _roles_), Lady Churchill becoming Miss
+Spencer, and Sir George Grey becoming "Dr." Grey. Once or twice the
+servants, who were of necessity in the plot, forgot their instructions,
+and blurted out "your Majesty," and "your Royal Highness;" but, luckily,
+no one heard the _faux pas_. After a very long and fatiguing drive through
+a district remarkably denuded of habitations, they arrived, at nightfall,
+at an inn of very small pretensions. They alighted, Sir George Grey and
+Lady Churchill, faithful to the necessities of the situation, giving no
+indication, by any deference of manner, of the quality of their
+fellow-travellers. Being ushered into small but tidy sleeping and dressing
+apartments, they had their travel-stains removed, and sat down to such a
+dinner as the resources of the establishment afforded. The two gillies in
+attendance were to have waited at table, but their bashfulness prevented
+their undertaking duties so entirely out of their line; so a damsel in
+ringlets, attached to the inn, performed the necessary duties. The repast
+consisted of a very delicate and delicious Scottish soup, known as
+"hodge-podge"--which, to be tasted to perfection, however, must be
+partaken of in early summer, when vegetables (of many kinds of which it is
+composed) are young and tender--mutton broth, fowls, "good" roast lamb,
+and "very good" potatoes. A bottle of wine the travellers had taken care
+to bring with them. They were less fortunate on the occasion of another
+similar trip, when all that could be procured was a couple of remarkably
+small and lean fowls, the remnants of which were sent down to the
+servants, with appetites rendered voracious by the keen mountain air. On
+this latter trip, a commercial traveller was much annoyed at his exclusion
+from the "commercial room," which was reserved for the servants. In answer
+to his remonstrance, the landlady pacified him by stating that the guests,
+who occupied her whole house, were "a wedding-party frae Aberdeen."
+
+When the cavalcade of the two "shabby vehicles" drove away, on the next
+morning, it was evident that "the murder was out," and that the inmates of
+the inn had discovered the quality of their guests, and communicated it to
+the scanty population of the village; for "all the people were in the
+street, and the landlady waved a pocket-handkerchief, and the ringletted
+maid a flag, from the window."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXII.
+
+THE WIDOWED QUEEN.
+
+    Unbroken Happiness of the Queen's Life up to 1861--Death of the
+    Duchess of Kent--The Prince Consort slightly Ailing--Catches Cold at
+    Cambridge and Eton--The Malady becomes Serious--Public Alarm--Rapid
+    Sinking, and Death--Sorrow of the People--The Queen's
+    Fortitude--Avoidance of Court Display--Good Deeds--Sympathy with all
+    Benevolent Actions--Letter of Condolence to the Widow of President
+    Lincoln--The Albert Medal--Conclusion.
+
+
+Until 1861 the Queen had never known bereavement in the circle of her own
+immediate family. Nine children had been born to her, and, although it is
+understood that certain of her younger offspring do not possess that
+robustness of health which their elder brothers and sisters enjoy, yet not
+one had been snatched from their loving parents by the hand of the Great
+Destroyer. Early in 1861 came the first pang of bereavement. The Duchess
+of Kent, ripe in years, one of the best of mothers and one of the best of
+grandmothers, a lady to whose memory all Britons now and hereafter owe an
+incalculable debt of gratitude, passed peacefully away with her
+descendants gathered around her bedside.
+
+[Sidenote: LAST DAYS OF PRINCE ALBERT.]
+
+When the Royal Family returned from Balmoral in October, it was observed
+that the Prince Consort was not in his usual health and vigour, but he had
+no pronounced ailment, and nothing approaching to serious alarm was for
+many weeks apprehended. In the course of the succeeding month he went to
+Cambridge, to visit the Prince of Wales, who was a student at that
+University, as he had previously been for a short time at Oxford. He went
+out shooting while there, got wet, and, as the Duke of Kent had done, was
+so imprudent as to sit down without removing his wet clothes.
+Nevertheless, on his return to Windsor, he pursued his usual daily
+avocations. About the beginning of December he appeared in public with the
+Queen, and reviewed the volunteer corps raised among the Eton boys. The
+rain fell fast, and the Prince was seized on the review ground with acute
+pains in the back. Feverish symptoms supervened, and the doctors ordered
+confinement to his room. Still no alarm was entertained, and it was
+believed that he suffered only from a passing malady. The general public
+knew nothing of the ailment until some solicitude was caused by a
+bulletin, which appeared in the _Court Circular_ of the 8th December:--
+
+    His Royal Highness the Prince Consort has been confined to his
+    apartments for the past week, suffering from a feverish cold, with
+    pains in his limbs. Within the last few days the feverish symptoms
+    have rather increased, and are likely to continue for some time
+    longer, but there are no unfavourable symptoms. The party which had
+    been invited by Her Majesty's command to assemble at Windsor Castle on
+    Monday has been countermanded.
+
+Not until the 13th was any bulletin issued which caused real anxiety and
+alarm. On the day following, the morning papers contained the ominous
+announcement that he had "passed a restless night, and the symptoms had
+assumed an unfavourable character during the day." The _Times_, in a
+leading article, while hoping for the best, startled all by its statement
+that "the fever which has attacked him is a weakening and wearying
+malady." On the morning of Saturday there was a favourable turn, but which
+was soon followed by a most serious relapse. About four p.m. the fever
+assumed a malignant typhoid type, and he began to sink with such rapidity
+that all stimulants failed to check the quick access of weakness. At nine
+o'clock a telegram was received in the City that the Prince was dying
+fast, and at a few minutes before eleven all was over. "On Saturday night
+last," said one of the daily journals of the succeeding Monday, "at an
+hour when the shops in the metropolis had hardly closed, when the theatres
+were delighting thousands of pleasure-seekers, when the markets were
+thronged with humble buyers seeking to provide for their Sunday
+requirements, when the foot-passengers yet lingered in the half-emptied
+streets, allured by the soft air of a calm, clear evening, a family in
+which the whole interest of this great nation is centred were assembled,
+less than five-and-twenty miles away, in the Royal residence at Windsor,
+in the deepest affliction around the death-bed of a beloved husband and
+father. In the prime of life, without--so to speak--a longer warning than
+that of forty-eight hours, Prince Albert, the Consort of our Queen, the
+parent of our future Monarchs, has been stricken down by a short but
+malignant disorder." Shortly after midnight, the great bell of St. Paul's,
+which is never tolled except upon the death of a member of the Royal
+Family, boomed the fatal tidings over a district extending, in the
+quietude of the early Sabbath morn, for miles around the metropolis.
+
+[Sidenote: DEATH OF PRINCE ALBERT.]
+
+The Queen, the Princess Alice, and the Prince of Wales, who had been
+hastily summoned from Cambridge, sat with the dying good man until the
+last. After the closing scene the Queen supported herself nobly, and
+after a short burst of uncontrollable grief, she is said to have gathered
+her children around her, and addressed them in the most solemn and
+affectionate terms. "She declared to her family that, though she felt
+crushed by the loss of one who had been her companion through life, she
+knew how much was expected of her, and she accordingly called on her
+children to give her their assistance, in order that she might do her duty
+to them and the country." The Duke of Cambridge and many gentlemen
+connected with the Court, with six of the Royal children, were present at
+the Prince's death. In answer to some one of those present who tenderly
+offered condolence, the Queen is reported to have said: "I suppose I must
+not fret too much, for many poor women have to go through the same trial."
+
+The sad news became generally known in the metropolis and in the great
+cities of the empire early on Sunday. Unusually large congregations filled
+the churches and chapels at morning service. "There was a solemn eloquence
+in the subdued but distinctly perceptible sensation which crept over the
+congregations in the principal churches when, in the prayer for the Royal
+family, the Prince Consort's name was omitted. It was well remarked, if
+ever the phrase was permissible, it might then be truly said that the name
+of the departed Prince was truly conspicuous by its absence, for never was
+the gap that this event has made in our national life, as well as in the
+domestic happiness of the Palace, more vividly realised than when the name
+that has mingled so familiarly in our prayers for the last twenty years
+was, for the first time, left out of our public devotions." Many
+thousands of mute pious petitions were specially addressed to Heaven for
+the bereaved widow and orphans when the prayer of the Litany for "all who
+are desolate and oppressed" was uttered, and in the chapels of
+Nonconformists the extemporaneous prayers of the ministers gave articulate
+expression to the heartfelt orisons of the silent worshippers. Every one
+thought of and felt for the Queen, and during the week intervening between
+the death and the funeral, the question on every one's lips in all places
+of resort, and where men and women congregated, was, "How will the Queen
+bear it?"
+
+Prince Albert sleeps the long sleep at Frogmore, to which his mortal
+remains were borne reverently, and without ostentation, as he himself
+would have wished. The inscription on his coffin ran thus:--
+
+                    DEPOSITUM
+        ILLUSTRISSIMI ET CELSISSIMI ALBERTI,
+                PRINCIPIS CONSORTIS,
+                   DUCIS SAXONIAE,
+          DE SAXE-COBURG ET GOTHA PRINCIPIS,
+      NOBILISSIMI ORDINIS PERISCELIDIS EQUITIS,
+    AUGUSTISSIMAE ET POTENTISSIMAE VICTORIAE REGINAE,
+                CONJUGIS PERCARISSIMI,
+    OBIIT DIE DECIMO QUARTO DECEMBRIS, MDCCCLXI.
+                ANNO AETATIS SUAE XLIII.
+
+    [Here lies the most illustrious and exalted Albert, Prince Consort,
+    Duke of Saxony, Prince of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, Knight of the Most
+    Noble Order of the Garter, the most beloved husband of the most august
+    and potent Queen Victoria. He died on the fourteenth day of December,
+    1861, in the forty-third year of his age.]
+
+Thus died and was buried a great and a good man, one of the most useful
+men of his age, one to whom England owes much.
+
+    "For that he loved our Queen,
+      And, for her sake, the people of her love,
+      Few and far distant names shall rank above
+    His own, where England's cherish'd names are seen."
+
+[Sidenote: THE QUEEN IN HER WIDOWHOOD.]
+
+The Queen has ever since her great bereavement most constantly and piously
+revered the Prince's memory. Her reverence has taken the practical form of
+the deepest sympathy with the woes and sorrows of the poorest and humblest
+of her subjects. She has eschewed the pomp and ceremony of State, and
+deliberately set herself to discover and soothe sorrow, and to recognise
+all good deeds of the same character performed by others. When the noble
+Peabody bestowed his princely act of munificence on the poor of London, no
+recognition was made of his generosity more signal than that made by the
+Queen. She has been among the first to help by loving words and by
+practical aid the sufferers by any great national calamity--a Lancashire
+famine, a shipwreck or railway accident, a colliery explosion, a
+catastrophe caused by mad and futile sedition. Ready and sympathetic
+condolence has especially flowed from her to those bereaved like herself,
+and when President Lincoln perished at his post, the Queen sent to his
+widow a long letter which her son described as "the outgushing of a
+woman's heartfelt sympathy," and which, with rare and commendable good
+taste, has never been exposed to the public eye. Most fitly has she
+specially commemorated her husband's memory by the institution of a fit
+companion and complement to the Victoria Cross, the "Albert Medal," which
+is bestowed on brave men who save lives from the "Peril of the Sea or
+Shipwreck."
+
+Many consolations have been vouchsafed by Heaven to the widowed Queen.
+Since she lost her great stay and support her realm has for the most part
+been prosperous and contented. Though environed by many troubles, and
+though the clang of battle has shaken the world, the dove of peace has
+benignantly hovered o'er Britain. Much advance has been made in those
+fields of social, moral, political, and educational improvement which were
+so dear to Albert's heart, as they have always been to her own. And
+shortly before the period when these pages are first given to the public,
+the political progress of the nation has received a great stimulus, such
+as is given in a people's history only at rare and long intervals. Her
+children grow up from youth to maturity, and from maturity to maternity
+and paternity, without a slur upon their fair names, and are, with those
+to whom the elder of them have united themselves in wedlock, all that a
+proud mother's heart could wish. God has stricken her; but He has proved
+also an Infinite Healer and Solacer. Ours be it to add to the ordinary
+motives of patriotism, those more tender and touching influences which
+arise from the recollection that our Queen is now, as said that Queen of
+England whose subjects were Shakespeare and Bacon, Spenser and
+Sidney--"Married to her People."
+
+
+THE END.
+
+
+CASSELL, PETTER, AND GALPIN, BELLE SAUVAGE WORKS, LONDON, E.C.
+
+
+
+
+CASSELL'S REPRESENTATIVE BIOGRAPHIES.
+
+
+VOL. I. _Life of John Bright_ 50 cents.
+
+VOL. II. _Life of W. E. Gladstone_ 50 cents.
+
+VOL. III. _Life of B. Disraeli_ 50 cents.
+
+VOL. IV. _Life of Queen Victoria_ 75 cents.
+
+OTHER VOLUMES IN PREPARATION.
+
+
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+Procter. With Prose and Verse by GRANDMAMMA. Square 8vo, cloth gilt $3 00
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+Illustrations, with appropriate Text for Young Children. Bound in
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+QUEER CREATURES, DRAWN BY ONE OF THEMSELVES.
+
+AESOP'S FABLES. (21 Plates.)
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